Downwind
by T.S. Blue
Summary: Hazzard is about to experience the strongest wind it has ever felt. Will it blow the Dukes apart? Complete.
1. Getting Each Other Into & Out of Trouble

_I'm back... okay, so it turns out that I did have one more biggie left in me, so here it comes. _

_This one is sort of a leaf out of my own book, which you'll understand as it progresses. Not to worry, it's not a romance, and I am not setting myself up with one of the boys. Sigh. _

_As always, I don't own them, though I do like them a lot. I also don't earn anything by borrowing them. If I did, I sure wouldn't be going to work tomorrow!_

_Cheers!_

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**Chapter 1 - Getting Each Other Into and Out of Trouble**

_Early spring 1980_

He'd been out here too long. It wasn't the darkness that alerted Bo Duke to that fact, falling as subtly and silently as it did, while he sat on this boulder, legs going slowly numb. The shimmering puddle of a pond before him, hidden in a wooded section of the Duke property, had been his refuge ever since he and his cousin Luke had created it as kids by damming up the chilly creek.

He realized now that their Uncle Jesse had been sweetly indulgent of his two boys when they'd come home, sopping wet and tracking mud, bragging about what they'd done. After a quick change of clothes, the boys had taken their guardian back out there to see their masterpiece, and instead of showing annoyance that they'd diverted the only trickle of water on the farm, he'd made some suggestions to improve the construction, plus allow for better runoff. Then he'd proudly told his boys that they could not have picked a better spot for their little project; there was a natural basin in which the water could gather, and it was an area that was well shaded, with a pretty view. Luke had pretended that he'd known about the physics of why the pond should be there, but in reality, both he and Bo knew that it was the boulder that sat beside the now stilled waters that had been the main reason for them choosing this location. It was a natural diving board.

And, as he had done countless times before, Bo spent this evening's last hours sitting on that very stone.

Orange blazed to purple before muting to gray and even black, but Bo wasn't terribly aware of the sky. Even the annoying mosquitoes that were making a meal of him didn't attract too much of his attention. Years of spending long days working in the fields had taught him to ignore minor discomforts. No, it was the song of spring peepers that caught his interest, those tiniest of frogs, the first of which were just emerging, thanks to the same early warm spell that had brought out the bugs. None of them were likely to survive the cold that would undoubtedly return by the end of the week, but for now, they were singing their little hearts out, and bringing Bo back to a happier time.

_One night during the first spring after they'd created this little haven, Bo and Luke had stayed out longer than they meant to, playing in the ravine at the far edge of the farm, too far away to hear their uncle calling them in out of the night. When Luke had realized their mistake, the two young boys had sprinted towards home, but stopped when they heard what sounded like a million baby chicks, peeping in the waters of their little swimming hole. Intrigued, they'd promised each other that after Uncle Jesse was through teaching them the lesson that they knew was coming, they would ask about this amazing sound._

_Two nights later, Bo and Luke had secured permission to camp out on that very section of the family property. Their innocent faces belied their mischievous plans, for they'd learned that the peeping sound came not from birds, but from little frogs. And they had a very good use for such creatures. _

_Peepers are hard to catch, and two sleepless boys spent much of the night splashing around, collecting as many as they could. The darkness had cooled the air and water both, and it took quite a bit of dedication to force themselves to complete the task at hand. Eventually they were satisfied, and stripping off their wet clothing, they'd shivered their way into matching sleeping bags, grinning at their successes. _

_At sunrise, Bo had collected their watery jars of booty, checking to make sure the lids were tightly screwed before rolling them up into the sleeping bags, even as Luke struck the tent. Then, smiling like the little devils that they were, they'd run home for breakfast, stashing their camping gear in their bedroom. Morning chores turned to lunch and afternoon chores, then finally dinner. Before they knew it, the sky had grown dark again. _

_With a slight smile, Luke stretched and said, "Well, I'm gonna get some shuteye. Couldn't hardly sleep last night, what with Bo there bein' so scared of the dark."_

"_Nuh-uh, was not," Bo responded, but then he caught sight of the tiny grin on Luke's face, and his memory came back. This was not a time to fight with his cousin. "I'm tired, too, though. Let's go to bed," he added, faking a yawn and grabbing Luke's arm; pulling him towards the stairs, quick, before a giggle could escape his lips. _

_Once they made their way to their shared bedroom, the boys dug out the jars of now rather smelly pond water and frogs from under their beds and took them across the hall to Daisy's room. Slimy hands scooped out tiny peepers and scattered them about the floor. Then the giggling boys went back to their own bedroom and turned out the light, peeking out the cracked door and waiting to hear screams when their female cousin came up for bed. _

_Frogs are not obedient creatures, and they did not wait silently for their fairy princess to come and kiss them into princes; they began calling for her. Loudly. The boys looked at one another in half amusement, half horror. And they sprung into their beds and began to snore exaggeratedly. When their cousin and uncle thumped their way up the stairs, the boys stiffened in anticipation. What they heard, rather than the screams they'd been imagining for the last 24 hours, was their uncle bellowing, "What in tarnation!" Then the only surviving female Duke spoke._

"_Aw, Uncle Jesse, they're so cute. Can I keep them?"_

_The boys spent another long night collecting frogs, this time out of Daisy's room, while their female cousin slept soundly in their room, and their uncle stood guard over them. Handing Luke a flashlight, the aging man sent his boys back out to the pond that very night. They didn't speak as they dumped the noisy creatures back into their natural habitat. Trudging home, the boys were not surprised to see their uncle waiting for them. After a sound thrashing, Bo and Luke were sent to share Daisy's bed, an uncomfortable prospect for two boys with sore behinds. _

_And, somewhere around two in the morning, Bo began to giggle. Despite himself, Luke quietly joined in before shushing him. They didn't need another round with their cantankerous uncle._

One corner of Bo's lips turned up, smiling wryly at the memory. Many an evening between that childhood prank and today, he'd spent out here, usually with his cousin, but sometimes by himself, thinking. And more than once, Luke had found him here, mooning over a girl, or sulking over harsh words spoken by people that really weren't all that important to him, not when he really thought about it. Always, his older cousin had half-consoled and half-cajoled until Bo was ready to come home. And if they'd been late for dinner, the other boy would somehow protect him from Jesse's temper, as well.

But Luke wouldn't come for him tonight. Which was most of why he was here in the first place. Limping slightly, thanks to the pins and needles in his right leg, Bo made his way towards the dim glow of the farmhouse that he and Luke had grown up in. He hadn't checked his pocket watch, and there wasn't enough light to see the time on it anyway, but he knew he was very late. As he opened the screen door at the front of the old farmhouse, he steeled himself for his uncle's reaction to that fact.

"Bo, is that you?" The words came wafting from the living room, where Jesse sat in his recliner, half hidden by the day's paper. Of course, his youngest nephew knew he couldn't possibly be reading it; the old man always finished his newspaper by the late morning. No, most likely his uncle was lying in wait, ready to make it clear that Bo had transgressed, once again.

"Yes, sir," Bo answered automatically. It wasn't like he could fool his uncle into believing he was anyone else, anyway, and if he did, he'd wind up facing the business end of old Jesse's rifle.

"Your dinner's in the fridge. Stick it in the oven for a few minutes, though. It's probably pretty cold by now."

"Yes, sir," Bo answered, surprised, but trying not to show it. Doing as Jesse suggested, Bo turned on the oven and placed the dinner plate his uncle had heaped high with food for him inside, before sitting at the table, chin resting on his hands. In a moment, lost in his thoughts, he was startled to feel gentle, calloused, age worn hands on his shoulders.

"Missing him, huh?" This was old, familiar territory that Bo just didn't want to go over, not even one more time. But his uncle was being far kinder than he needed to be, and sassing the old man would get Bo nowhere pleasant.

"I suppose," the blonde answered.

"Me, too," the old man admitted, giving Bo's shoulders one more pat. "Now, son, I'm going off to bed. I reckon you should eat and do the same. There's a lot of chores that didn't get done this evening, 'cause you was out fretting. We'll want to get an early start on them in the morning. Good night."

The youngest of the Duke cousins shook his head as he stood to rescue his dinner from the oven. He would have preferred the lecture, even the whippings of his youth, to the gentle guilt his uncle had just left him with. But Jesse was right. There was work to be done quite early the next day, so he ate quickly, and headed off to the room that he and Luke had always shared. Without his oldest cousin to wake him in the morning, he'd have to get up on his own, so he'd better get himself to sleep as soon as possible.

The mind is not always obedient, often refusing direct orders to quiet down. Insomnia was more Luke's thing than Bo's, but on this night, the youngest cousin suffered the malady of the oldest.

There were two of them, that was the point. Uncle Jesse would remind him that there were actually four, and that was undeniable; the family also included his uncle and his female cousin, both of whom he loved dearly. But forever, it seemed, the two boys of the household had been _BoandLuke_, almost referred to by the one name and always in one breath. Oh, they certainly had their own personalities, and their uncle would be sure to tell him that they hadn't always agreed on everything. In fact, there had been some moments that Bo thought they might never recover from, though they'd always found their way back to the intuitive closeness that they shared. Deep in his heart Bo knew that just about everything important in his life, he'd learned from Luke. To his mind, the learning wasn't done, and it had become more of an equal exchange of knowledge, though Luke would only admit to that on the rarest of occasions.

And there were two of them, getting each other into and out of trouble. They took secret pride in that part.

But now Luke was gone. His youngest cousin didn't know what to make of that, really. It wasn't like Luke had walked away casually, he'd been sent. But they'd always expected him to come back.

_I'm sorry. _The words still stung Bo as he remembered them. _I'll send you money as I earn it, but I don't expect I'll be coming home._ Flipping on the light between the two beds, the blonde pulled the letter he'd already committed to memory from the drawer of the night stand. It was written to Bo alone, though he'd shown it to their uncle, as Luke must have known he would. _I love you_, it closed, _and I hope you'll forgive me some day_.

"Forgive you for what, Lukas?" Bo said, turning off the light switch, and hardly realizing he'd spoken aloud. "Give me half a chance, buddy, and you know I will."


	2. Get Out?

_Hey all. Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter, and special thanks to those who reviewed. The life of the grant writer is not always pleasant and my next week promises to make me homicidal, so I'll get this chapter off now, while I can._

_Just a heads up, note the timeline for this chapter vs. the last, else you might find yourself confused..._

_They ain't mine. However, a lot of the experiences are, though obviously the details have been changed._

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**Chapter 2 - Get Out?**

_Summer, 1979_

August had never been a month that could be trusted. Farmers across Georgia watched the month like a deer watches a watering hole before settling in to drink: carefully, and without making any sudden moves. The blazing summer could bring anything from locusts to floods to wildfire, any of which might mean the death of a crop.

This particular August had been rather dry – not quite enough to endanger the Appalachian farmers' livelihoods, but somehow the days never fell into the rhythm that they should have, of morning heat followed by daily afternoon thunderstorms. Things were browner than any of the Dukes liked to see them, although there was no need for any extreme measures yet. The family settled into a steady routine of watering the crops in the evening, thus allowing the cooler night hours to keep the moisture from instantly evaporating. This put a crimp into the boys' social life, but they worked without complaining. The livelihood of the family was at stake, and besides, neither of them was seeing anyone steadily enough to mind staying home. By virtue of her paying job, serving watered down liquor and beer, Daisy was left out of watering down the crops. She didn't exactly mind.

The family never quite relaxed, but they were not overly anxious, either. It was unrelentingly hot, turning the afternoons into rest time. For Jesse this meant a nap, while Daisy read glamour magazines in the relative cool of the living room on the shaded side of the house. The boys had their own method of 'resting,' which consisted of moving at speeds of more than a hundred miles per hour. But, as they told their scolding uncle, the car was doing all the work, and they were just relaxing inside of it. In fact, Bo went so far as to suggest that they actually got some shuteye while racing around like that, and found himself on the receiving end of a lengthy lecture on safety behind the wheel. To add insult to injury, immediately after Jesse's diatribe, Luke helpfully suggested that Bo's driving privileges be suspended for a week, which meant a full seven days of the frustrated blonde sitting shotgun while his smirking cousin drove.

All in all, unless the drought turned to wildfire, it seemed like the summer would pass without serious incident. Bo and Luke began to plan which of the dirt track circuit races they could squeeze in around the harvest that would happen in less than six weeks time, because even though this year's cotton crop looked very likely to survive and already had a buyer, the family never put all its eggs into one basket. Besides, while the boys had learned to love the land just like generations of Dukes before them did, they loved racing just a little bit more.

One sweltering afternoon, as the August days shortened their way into September, the two male cousins chose to use their "rest time" to go into town and get the lowdown from their friend Cooter. The town's mechanic was a fountain of information, not only about cars and racing, but also local gossip. Like many of the small communities tucked into the valleys of southern Appalachia, Hazzard's social life revolved around two locations: the roadhouse out on Route 36, and the local garage. The Duke boys went to the former when they were looking for female company, and the latter to be belching, bragging boys. And the garage doubled an information central in Hazzard.

The town told its own story that afternoon, before the Duke boys could even get to their friend the mechanic. As they wheeled into Hazzard Square the boys' attention was drawn to a large banner over the door to the County Building: "Emergency Information Here." Bo chuckled while Luke grumbled.

"What's Boss up to now?"

A few breaths later, the boys were sliding out the windows of their race car to sit on the doorsills and watch some of their friends and neighbors heading through the Courthouse doors just below the new banner.

"I don't know, cousin, but whatever it is, people are fallin' for it."

"Hey, buddyroes," Cooter chirped, startling them both.

After the customary greetings, the Duke boys made their way into the garage alongside their friend. Mission forgotten for the moment, Bo asked, "What kind of emergency help is Boss givin' over there, anyways?"

"It ain't Boss," Cooter answered. "It's the State Department of Emergency Management. Boss don't want them there at all."

"Well, why are they there?" Luke asked, growing frustrated with his lack of knowledge. If there was one thing that made Luke Duke impatient, it was not having all the facts of any situation.

"Because of the hurricane," Cooter answered, looking at the Duke boys as if they'd each grown an extra head. "You boys need to get off the farm more often."

Sure their friend was joking, Bo decided to take the bait. "What hurricane?"

"The one they're expecting to come onshore south of Savannah. The one they say might move fast enough to make it on up here."

"Cooter," Bo said, his irritation at the mechanic's lack of sense showing in his tone, "Hurricanes don't come up here."

"Shoot, you know that, and I know that, but does that there hurricane know that?" Looking from one incredulous pair of blue eyes to another, Cooter chuckled. "Listen fellas, I don't think that thing's coming here any more than you do. But the state does, an' it's set up camp over there to help us get ready. There's a meeting in the sheriff's station tonight at eight. Maybe you all ought to come."

"Maybe," Luke answered, enduring an elbow in the ribs from his younger cousin. "Well, it wouldn't hurt," he explained to a disbelieving blonde. "An' if it's somethin' that Boss has cooked up to start trouble, then we ought to come so's we have some idea of what he's up to."

"I guess," Bo muttered, rolling his eyes. "Jesse's gonna think we're nuts, though."

"Prob'ly so," Luke agreed. "But let's get on home and talk to him anyways. See you tonight, Coot," the oldest Duke cousin said, deciding to leave discussions of races for another day. Right now, the boys needed to head for the farm.

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Much to Bo and Luke's surprise, their Uncle Jesse was taking this hurricane thing very seriously. As soon as they'd given him the news, he turned on the radio in the kitchen, complaining that the newspaper couldn't be counted on to keep a man informed anymore, not since the invention of radio and it's wicked cousin, television. The Duke kids had all been raised without TV, and for the most part they hadn't really missed it. But it still amused them to hear their uncle cursing it as if it had single-handedly brought about the fall of the south or something. 

The radio was another thing entirely, and Daisy, in particular, would not have been able to live without it. But thanks to the unusual schedule they'd all been keeping to do the evening watering, they hadn't really had time to listen much. Normally it wouldn't have mattered a lot, but now Jesse seemed to be in a tizzy because of their lack of knowledge about an important weather event.

"Don't look at me that way, boys. Your Uncle Jesse knows a thing or two. And one thing he knows is that although you kids are used to laughing at storms, every now and then, one actually comes up through here. And when it does, it ain't nothin' to laugh at."

The three of them hustled out to start the daily watering process early, so that all of the Duke men could be present to learn whether there really was a danger, and just how the state was prepared to help them. When they returned from the fields, they were surprised to learn that Daisy had gotten a call telling her to report to the county building instead of the Boar's Nest for work that night. It seemed that the townsfolk would be at the meeting, not the bar, allowing the Duke family as a whole to attend.

Apparently the Dukes were the last people in the county to have learned about the potential danger. When the four of them arrived at the common room of the County Courthouse, they could see that most of the town was already there, sitting in remarkably tidy rows and muttering quietly. This was not a normal Hazzard gathering, where a brawl could break out with the slightest provocation. Seriousness permeated the room, subduing even the energetic Duke cousins.

Not long after the farming family arrived, the meeting was called to order by a man that no one in the room, with the exception of the County Commissioner, J. D. Hogg, had ever met before. The pudgy man in white was clearly uncomfortable with this outsider, a fact that made most of the people in the room trust the newcomer immediately. Expecting an introduction from the law of this county, but not getting one, the state official gave up and simply introduced himself as Daniel Green from the State of Georgia Emergency Services Department. Bo couldn't help but chuckle to himself as the man pulled at the neck of his dress shirt while he spoke. _That'll teach him to dress 'city' out here in Hazzard_, he thought. _No air conditioning in this county courthouse!_ The youngest Duke cousin was about to nudge Luke and whisper those same thoughts to him, when he realized that his older cousin was paying pretty close attention to the nervous, but well-spoken man at the front of the room.

Describing the strength of what had become a large hurricane named David, then discussing the paths it might take, Mr. Green made it clear that no one knew anything about hurricanes at all, except that you probably didn't want to get caught in the middle of one.

"A storm like this can come onshore or stay at sea. It can turn and change direction without much warning. It can strengthen over water, and will likely weaken over land. But you can't be certain that any of these things will happen."

"Sounds to me like you can't tell us anything much except that it might or might not come here," Luke butted in, typically annoyed by the absence of clear, hard facts. Bo smiled, seeing Jesse nudge his dark haired cousin, but he could see a similar tension in their aging uncle. None of them were liking the confusing information they were getting.

"It's true, I can't tell you what the storm will do," the slender, gray haired man answered, steadily, despite the growing unrest in the room. "What I can tell you is that the storm might come through here, and if it does, you had better be prepared. And that's what I am here to help you do – prepare your property to weather the storm, and then get out."

"Get out?" More than one voice had said it, and Bo and Luke had been amongst them.

"The state recommends evacuation of this area to a safer location. While you are at minimal risk for flooding, with the exception of the low-lying swamp lands, there are other dangers, from the high winds and potential mudslides."

The Duke kids all looked at one another for a moment. They'd never seen a mudslide in person, but they'd seen the effects. Razorback Mountain, which was now much more like Razorback Bump, had lost half its land to a mudslide, and all three of the younger Dukes had seen what a difference that had made. Fortunately, no one lived on the backside of old Razorback, but if they had, well, they would have been buried alive. As much as they had come to this meeting scoffing, the younger Dukes were starting to take this seriously.

Although he'd frustrated everyone at first, this Daniel Green from the State Department of Emergency Management quickly became the most important man in town. Most people did not believe that there would be any sort of hurricane in Hazzard, but in case there was, this was a man who could tell them how to get ready for it. Progressing quickly though protecting houses and outbuildings to preparing livestock, the state official finally broached evacuation procedures.

"Ideally, since Hazzard has no shelters, nor emergency plan," Green looked meaningfully at the white-clad cigar-smoking county lawmaker, "we recommend leaving as soon as you've secured all your belongings; earlier if the hurricane picks up speed and appears to be taking a path towards northern Georgia. Remember, these things are bigger than they look, and can wreak havoc for hundreds of miles. So you'll want to get out of its way as early as possible."

Again, this brought unrest from the crowd, but the loudest vocalizations came from J. D. Hogg.

"Leave, leave, leave? What's this leave? We can't have the whole town evacuating. Why, imagine! No one shopping at the stores or drinking at the Boar's Nest… there'd be no one to deposit money in the bank!"

Distaste fermented into genuine disgust as Green's deep set eyes shot sparks at the so-called Hazzard County public servant. The state official reasserted his authority.

"Each of those businesses – in fact, everything in the county – should be closed at least a day in advance of the storm's anticipated landfall. Which means," again, the well-dressed man's voice rose over the protests of the man to his right, "You should all plan to stock up on everything you'll need for preparation, evacuation, and two weeks of recovery after the storm. And you should do that tomorrow, first thing. At the rate it's currently traveling, the storm could be here in three days."

"Or, it could miss us altogether, right?" Once again, Luke's frustrated voice made itself heard.

"Correct, young man." Green did not flinch. "And that is why you need to be prepared, either way. And listen to your radio. Not the local station, either, but the news channel out of Atlanta."

Boss Hogg looked like he might explode right then and there, but the crowd was not paying him any attention anyway. With a series of nonsense syllables sounding remarkably like those usually uttered by Sheriff Cotrane, the man in white finally gave in to the inevitable.

Softening slightly from his official stance, the newcomer addressed the restless Hazzardites sympathetically. "I realize that it's frustrating for you all not to know what to expect. But you need to protect yourselves and each other, just in case. Property can be replaced. Your loved ones are one of a kind."

The Dukes' eyes met, and even Luke seemed to settle down. While this man was a virtual stranger, he had reminded them of their own priorities. Whatever came, they would handle it together.

As the meeting broke up, Jesse joined the line of townsfolk waiting to talk for a few minutes with the state official. The man had provided an avalanche of information, and the people of Hazzard looked as though they had been buried in debris. Some were stunned, many still whispered disbelief, and those who really wanted help in dealing with their unique situations were waiting their turn to learn more from Green. In the meantime, Daisy was dispatched to open the Boar's Nest to any customers that needed to unwind after the evening.

"Go, relax, forget all your troubles," Boss encouraged his constituents, earning yet another glare from the state official.

Bo and Luke retired to the steps of the county building, awaiting their uncle.

"Do you really think this thing's coming, cousin?" Bo asked, knowing that Luke would have an opinion, if not necessarily an answer.

"Shoot, don't seem like nobody knows. But no, I don't think so. I kinda remember what we learned in school, an' we might get some rain and wind, but those things don't survive, not as hurricanes, this far inland," Luke answered, projecting the confidence of a lifetime of practice. As long as the older boy could remember, Bo had looked to him to provide a base of security from which the blonde could operate. His trust in Luke allowed him to be more carefree and wild than he might have to be if there wasn't someone looking out for him. There were ways in which Luke served as a trunk, solidly rooting them to the ground, while the younger boy reached upward, his branches swept by the breeze.

"What do you think?" Luke tossed the question back at his little cousin.

"I don't know," the blonde answered. "But I'm thinkin' that we can't leave. I mean, what if it don't come? We could be gone a couple of days while it's makin' up its mind what it's gonna do. An' in the meantime, the crops would dry out so bad, we'd lose 'em."

His older cousin's eyes got a faraway look that he'd grown up seeing.

"Whatcha thinkin', Luke?"

The brunette didn't answer right away, which Bo recognized as a sign that whatever was going on in Luke's mind was fairly serious.

"I think you got a point, cousin. _We_ shouldn't evacuate. But Jesse and Daisy – they should."

Recognition dawned in the depths of indigo eyes. "They ain't gonna want to. But yeah, I think they oughtta get out, too."

"It won't be so hard to get 'em to go," Luke said, the right corner of his mouth lifting just slightly into a half-smile. "I got a plan."

"You usually do."


	3. Look at it Like a Vacation

_Hey all! Thanks to those who have been reading thus far, and special thanks to those who have reviewed. It's definitely helped keep me upbeat as I work on the back end of this thing. And for those of you who review anonymously, I don't get to reply directly to you, but thanks for your feedback. And Gia - thanks for the prod. _

_I sure as heck don't own 'em, but I do enjoy borrowing them. Somehow I don't think its as much fun for them as it is for me..._

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**Chapter 3 – Look at it Like a Vacation **

That night, the old farmhouse resonated with the sound of creaking mattress springs instead of the usual snores and occasional sleep-mumblings. Almost relieved by the first pinks to streak across the sky, all four Dukes rose and quietly met at the breakfast table. Normally they'd feed the livestock before they fed themselves, but today there were new priorities to be attended to. And the first was deciding just what those priorities would be.

"You boys better go check how much plywood there is in that loft," Jesse instructed. Seeing his nephews begin to get their feet under them, he used his open hands to conduct them back into their seats. "After you eat will be soon enough. Daisy, you need to go into town and stock up on all those canned foods that Mr. Green suggested. Get us enough to last a week."

Bo looked to his older cousin, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. Now was not the time to enact his plan, though he'd have to work pretty quickly, it seemed.

"Only one week, Uncle Jesse?" Daisy was not normally one to question her uncle, but the threat of such a serious storm made her somewhat uneasy. "Mr. Green said we should maybe get a couple of weeks' worth of non-perishable food."

"Well now," Jesse said in a tone that his kids recognized as a warning that obedience was the wisest choice, "He may know a lot of things about disasters and emergencies, but this Green fellow don't know nothing about Hazzard. Rhuebottom's don't carry enough stock for everyone in town to get two weeks' worth of food at one time." Softening his scolding with a wink, the old man added, "We don't want to take more than our share."

The old farmhouse was soon silent as the Duke family went off in three different directions. About fifteen minutes after they'd heard the retreat of Daisy's engine, the boys were done passing all the plywood they could find out the loft door and leaning it against one of the old oak trees in the middle of the farmyard. Shoulder to shoulder, they walked out in search of their uncle, who they knew would be tending to the crops.

As they wandered the narrow rows towards the red cap they could see in the distance, Bo watched his older cousin's stride get purposeful. This was relatively new in Luke, a post-military characteristic, but by now it was as meaningful to Bo as any of the brunette's other quirks. Luke was on a mission.

Their uncle could see them coming for a long ways, and yet seemed surprised at their arrival. The old man had a habit of getting easily lost in his thoughts, especially over the last few years, as the last of his hair had gone white.

"Well, we got enough plywood?" he asked gruffly, trying to mask how many miles away his mind had been.

"No, sir," his younger nephew answered. "We got enough to maybe cover the windows on half the house."

"I been thinkin' about what we'd do if we didn't have enough," Jesse said, looking away from his boys and towards a part of the Duke land that had largely grown wild over the last few decades. "We can't exactly go buyin' plywood right now. But we can dismantle the old barn up there," the old man's deep blue eyes indicated the direction of the structure, "and use some of the better planks that are there to protect the rest of the house. That old thing wouldn't stand through a good wind anyways."

Luke nodded. "Good idea. I got some other ideas about protectin' the livestock. We ain't got to turn them loose like Green suggested. I got me another plan. But first, I wanna talk to you about Daisy."

The old man's features softened into a thoughtful look. His boys, in particular this older one, were very protective of their female cousin, a trait that led to as many arguments as it did hugs. Jesse hoped that whatever was on Luke's mind could be dealt with in a more affectionate manner than some of his past efforts to protect her.

"_Did you know that Daisy's got a boyfriend?" a nearly nineteen-year-old Luke had stormed, sounding dangerously like a tattling child of half that age._

"_Yes, Luke, I do. She talked to me about him before she started to date him."_

"_She's too young," Luke insisted, chin jutted in decisiveness._

_Bo watched with curiosity. He and Luke had talked about girls, a lot. His older cousin had taken out several, starting when he was younger than Daisy's current age of fifteen. Bo himself had already gone on his first date a few months ago, taking a girl from the seventh grade to a festival in town. At the end of the night he'd sneaked a kiss (not his first, of course), but nothing more had happened and they hadn't made a second date. Now that he was starting the ninth grade, he expected to pick up where the recently graduated Luke had left off. But as much as he was ready to begin his own dating career, Bo found he agreed with Luke. Daisy, who was a year ahead of him in school, and a year and a half older, was too young for a boyfriend._

_Jesse fixed his oldest with a look that Luke had seen before. It was a silent reminder of exactly who ruled the household, and if Luke needed a hint, the old man would be glad to provide it by way of taking the teen over his knee._

"_Well, she's too young for A.C., anyway," the brunette asserted._

"_Is there something about this boy that I need to know, son?" The tone of their guardian's voice made it apparent that if Luke had a complaint, it had better be a good one._

"_He's older than her," the protective boy started to make his case, but he never got the chance to continue._

"_Only a year." Daisy must've come quietly in through the back door while the males of the house were talking._

_A muscle in Luke's cheek twitched. No one else would even have noticed, but Bo did. And he knew what it meant, too. His older cousin hadn't wanted to have this conversation in front of Daisy._

"_I'm just sayin'…"_

_Before Luke could finish or Uncle Jesse could intervene, the teenaged girl's normally cool blue eyes grew fiery and her hair flew as she moved right up into her cousin's face, hands on hips._

"_What exactly are you sayin', Luke Duke? That I ain't old enough or smart enough to choose my own dates? You think you better do it for me?"_

"_Now I didn't say that." For all that he annoyed his younger cousins, Jesse had to give his oldest credit. He never meant to hurt them, though he'd done it often enough by mistake. It would be best if their uncle stayed out of this for now. Luke needed to learn a lesson here, and for once, the best teacher wouldn't be their guardian._

"_Well then, you tell me what you _were_ sayin'," Daisy challenged again. Though he hated to see his kids fight, the man who was raising them had to marvel at how his sweet girl could hold her own against her male cousins._

"_I was just sayin'…" Luke couldn't finish his sentence, not without admitting that Daisy was at least partly right in what she had assumed. "I just want you to be careful, is all. Boys ain't as nice as they pretend to be."_

"_Like you?" The young woman knew her cousin had already broken at least a few hearts._

_Luke stayed silent for a moment, looking away. Then he muttered, "I guess."_

"_Well, you just listen here, cousin." The finger she held in front of Luke's nose was long and slender, but the way in which she wielded it was reminiscent of her uncle's heavier digits. "I ain't gonna fall for none of those lines you use on girls anyways. I know better."_

"_But Daisy…"_

"_I ain't done yet! An' even if I did fall for one of those lines, it would be my own business. It's _my_ heart to break, Luke, not yours!"_

"_I know that. I just don't want it getting broken at all."_

"_Oh, Luke. I know you're just trying to protect me. But you gotta let me breathe, cousin. You gotta let me figure this stuff out for myself."_

_Jesse had been proud of his girl that day, but time told the truth. Daisy might have won the battle, but in her efforts to prove she knew best, she lost the war. She stayed with the boy longer than she would have, if she hadn't been trying to show Luke just how much she could take care of herself. In the end, Jesse's only girl got hurt and his oldest boy came home with skinned knuckles, while his youngest took it all in, wide eyed with admiration._

Jesse hoped that whatever Luke had up his sleeve today would end a little more gently than some of their past adventures.

"What about Daisy?" he asked.

"Me and Bo's been talkin'. We think she oughta do what the state says and evacuate. She could go to Aunt Katherine's in Nashville."

Jesse's eyes darkened in thought. "Maybe so," he agreed. "I been thinkin' that all you kids oughtta go. I can stay behind and take care of the place by myself. It ain't like there's much to do right now, 'cept water the crops, an' that really only takes one of us."

Blonde fringed midnight blue eyes sought out the brilliant blue of his cousin. This was not exactly the arrangement Luke had outlined for him last night. Even before Luke could open his mouth, Bo was already talking. He had no idea what he was going to say, but that had never stopped him before.

"No, Uncle Jesse, that's not what we was thinkin'," the blonde began.

A slight bump to his right arm coming from Luke's tanned elbow indicated that it was time for Bo to be quiet now; Luke had a new plan.

"Bo's right, Uncle Jesse. We was thinkin' you should take Daisy. You ain't seen Aunt Katherine in a month of Sundays, an' you know how she's always askin' after you."

Aunt Katherine was not the boys' aunt at all, but was Daisy's mother's sister. She'd left Hazzard some twenty-five years earlier after the disintegration of her disastrous marriage to a violent moonshiner. Old Amos, her ex, had since died, but Katherine stayed away anyway, saying she was growing accustomed to city ways. But rumor around Hazzard had it that, like Daisy's mother, Katherine was attracted to her own generation's Duke boys, and that as they had all married off or passed away, she'd married Amos in the kind of desperation that only a girl who feared the words "old maid" would understand. Some said she'd left Hazzard and stayed away so she wouldn't have to watch the various Duke brothers live happily with their chosen wives. Of course, back when she'd gone, no one had known exactly how much tragedy would befall that particular generation of Dukes.

Katherine had remained close to her only niece, especially since Daisy's mother had died while giving birth to her. She believed that the little girl needed to know who her mother had been. As a result of her involvement in Daisy's life, the older woman had known all three of the Duke cousins throughout their childhood, well enough that they all called her "aunt." And starting from the time they were old enough to notice such things, the kids had all seen that around their Uncle Jesse, Katherine was a little too cheerful, a tad giddy, a touch over-animated. And somewhere after the death of their Aunt Lavinia, the boys thought they had noticed a slight change in Jesse's demeanor towards Katherine, as well.

"Could be I should see Katherine one of these days," Jesse agreed wistfully. A cocky _I-told-you-so _look was just passing from eldest nephew to youngest, when Jesse continued harshly, "But not right now. Ain't no way I'm leavin' this here farm if a storm's comin'."

"But Jesse, the storm prob'ly won't come here. I mean, you saw all the different things it could do," Bo insisted. "It could stay out at sea, or go north or south. Why would it come through here?"

The white haired man regarded his optimistic nephew. Jesse wanted nothing more than to pat Bo on the head and reassure him that everything would be all right, just as he used to do when the boy's head was a good three feet lower and within easy patting reach. Before he could even remind himself that his child was way too big for that now, Luke was talking.

"Yeah, Uncle Jesse, it ain't likely to come here. Look at it like a vacation. Me and Bo will take care of the farm whilst you and Daisy relax, up in Nashville."

"When was the last time you had a vacation?" Bo jumped in. "You ought to take a break and have some fun every now and then."

If he hadn't been slightly annoyed, Jesse would have laughed. His boys were just as transparent to him as they had been ten years earlier, trying to convince him that school was closed for "fisherman's holiday." If he hadn't realized that they now thought he was too old to weather a storm, it would have been cute, the way they were trying to trick him.

"I ain't goin' nowheres," the old man roared. "Don't you boys be thinkin' I don't know you're up to. Now get out there and start emptying that old barn. This subject is closed."

With a few more complaining grumbles, Jesse returned his attention to the crops. He appreciated that his kids wanted to spare him the hardship and potential dangers of the storm, but he resented the idea that he needed to be spared. If anyone needed protection, it was those two overgrown toddlers. Why, those fools thought that riding on the _outside_ of a moving vehicle was as safe as riding on the _inside_. They were still young enough to believe in their own immortality. Jesse Duke wouldn't let those two stay behind without him under any circumstances. They'd likely go out and try to repair the roof of the barn right in the middle of the darn storm. Not that Jesse actually thought this Hurricane David would come through Hazzard. Still, a body couldn't be too careful.

Finally talking himself down from his anger, the old man scratched his bearded chin while watching two heads bob along above the crop line. It was obvious that his boys were arguing, probably blaming one another for their inability to convince their uncle to evacuate. Regaining his good humor, Jesse Duke snickered.

"You boys are just amateurs, dealing with the master," he muttered aloud.


	4. The Mountains Take Care of Us

_Hey all! Just because work's killing me doesn't mean I can't post a chapter! Besides, being so busy makes my author's notes mercifully brief._

_Thanks for all the feedback. _

_Oh, wait, here's a question. Is anyone else experiencing this weird phenomenon? I upload the chapter, then type these author's notes straight into the document manager. After I do that, I hit "save" and the first line of the original document (in this case, my chapter title) disappears. I wind up having to retype it. Anyone else have that problem? It didn't used to happen._

_Don't own 'em, don't earn anything._

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**Chapter 4 - The Mountains Take Care of Us**

Rhuebottom's was not exactly the pleasant, small town General Store that Daisy had shopped in since childhood, at least not today. As soon as she shoved the door open, the young woman could hear far more chatter than the small building usually contained, and it sounded a lot more anxious than the usually cheery morning greetings to which she was accustomed. Everyone in the store seemed to be in a foul mood, from the small cluster of elderly men whispering about past storms and lost homesteads, to the knot of young mothers squabbling over the dwindling supply of diapers and baby food. In the midst of growing chaos, a calm Mr. Rhuebottom seemed to be everywhere, tidying shelves, mediating disputes, and checking people out as quickly as possible.

The only surviving female Duke was a favorite customer in this store; Bruce Rhuebottom had watched her grow up from a sassy little girl into a spunky young adult. In fact, generations of Rhuebottoms had served generations of Dukes from behind this very counter, and old Bruce had been around long enough to know Jesse's father. Younger than the current Duke patriarch, Bruce had been but a pre-teen when the store had fallen on hard times. Deliveries of goods to be sold had stopped coming from Atlanta in 1942 during the war to end all wars. Rationing had been hard enough on the community, but on top of that, the Rhuebottom's truck driving delivery boy had been conscripted into the Army, and his truck sold, stranding the Rhuebottom family's supplies in a city two hours away. Jesse's father had lent out one of his boys at a time, as well as the Dukes' only car, to make the trip until a new driver and vehicle could be found. Bruce Rhuebottom figured he owed his continuing livelihood to the Duke family, and he made sure to take special care of the entire clan.

Leaving the now mostly quieted diaper-grabbing group, Bruce moved to see to Daisy's needs. As usual, the young woman favored him with her winning grin and told him she'd be fine, thanks. Today, however, the store's owner was not taking no for an answer.

"Daisy, darlin', I've got some things behind the counter for you." Leading her by the elbow, the stocky man showed the prettiest customer in his store a number of canned goods and a large bag of oats that he'd put aside for her family.

"Oh, Mr. Rhuebottom, thank you! But I can't take all this. Why, Uncle Jesse said…"

"Young lady," the proprietor did his best imitation of an angry school principal scolding a naughty child. "I don't care what your uncle told you. You will be taking all of this home with you, and immediately."

Though she was very fond of old Mr. Rhuebottom, Daisy wished that his son had been working the store that day. The younger Rhuebottom was still markedly older than the only surviving female Duke, but he couldn't intimidate and charm her in the same breath like his old man. Daisy would have been able to resist him.

"But Mr. Rhuebottom, I ain't…"

"Don't be worried about havin' enough money to pay me just now. We'll square things later. You just take this," he said, beginning to bag her goods.

"You don't really think this storm's comin', do you Mr. Rhuebottom? I mean, from what they were sayin' last night, it seems like it could do a million different things."

"All I can tell you Daisy-girl, is that these things don't always miss. Best be prepared. There now, you're all set," he said, handing her the bags he'd just packed. "Now sweetheart, you be safe, you hear?"

Embarrassed by the whole exchange, especially since it had been witnessed by some of the anxious patrons in the general store, Daisy just thanked the man and hustled to her car. She was going to have some explaining to do when she got home.

* * *

"Bo, will you just quit it? I told you it's no big deal." Luke was unusually testy by this time. Normally he took his cousin's teasing in stride, dishing back some of his own in return, but between the lack of sleep last night and the way the day was sticking to him like a hot blanket, he was ready to say some unkind things to his annoying little cousin. 

"Sure, Luke. No big deal. Except, for once, your plan didn't work," Bo said in a tone that tried, and failed, to be joking. It was hot, yes, and humid, too much so to be working so hard. But they'd worked though worse. There was just something about the work they were doing, emptying a barn to be dismantled, that put the blonde on edge. He didn't mind destruction, not when it was done quickly and with a fast-moving automobile, like the fence on the old Kelly property that they'd demolished last week while cruising in their orange stock car. But normally what they razed, they rebuilt, and in this case, they were going to disassemble this barn without replacing it. Something about taking it apart without planning to restore it, made Bo less than calm. And his chosen method of relieving unwanted stress was picking at his cousin.

Normally, banter between the boys was friendly, if a little raucous. Today, however, neither was having fun, a fact which Luke's tone of voice betrayed.

"Like I keep telling you, it was just Plan A. I still got Plan B. Now just quit talkin' and start doin' some work, wouldja?"

The boys went to opposite sides of the barn, pretending not to hear one another's mumbled complaints. They were hot, they were uneasy, but neither of them really wanted to fight.

* * *

She'd have to face her uncle soon enough, and admit that she hadn't been strong enough to tell Mr. Rhuebottom no. In the meantime, Daisy was putting the guilt-inducing groceries away, after which she'd clean the kitchen and head out to the fields looking for her kin. It seemed odd, cleaning up like usual, when in town, especially in the store, everything had seemed so nuts. She still didn't believe there'd be a hurricane in Hazzard. She'd heard talk since childhood about how Hazzard, though poor, was well situated, being at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains like it was. She smiled, remembering some of the local lore. 

_Six-year-old Daisy Duke was glad she didn't have to share a room like her cousins did. At least, that was what she told herself, especially when she could hear them talking in there at night, even though they were supposed to be sleeping. She wasn't lonely._

_Most nights she could convince herself of that, and be content to drift off in the peace of her own bedroom. But this night was anything but peaceful. Lightning flashed often enough that it almost seemed like daylight outside, and the thunder followed so quickly that she couldn't even count one Mississippi between flash and crash. Finally, after one particularly close series, the little girl jumped from her bed and ran for the stairs. She moved so fast that she almost didn't register the sound of Bo's voice as he told their older cousin how scared he was. Daisy knew that the younger boy trusted that Luke could make anything better, but she hadn't lived here as long as the two of them, and she didn't yet look up to the oldest boy in quite the same way. When she was scared, she wanted an adult._

_Taking the stairs as quickly as she could, she didn't stop running until she landed in her aunt's lap. It must be early yet; neither of her guardians had gone to bed for the night._

"_Daisy, sweetheart, you ain't scared of a little thunder, are you?" her uncle scolded gently, with a chuckle._

"_You just hush, Jesse Duke. I heard tell about how when you was little, you was once found hiding in the closet during a storm like this," Lavinia rebuked._

_A small snicker escaped Daisy's lips before the next big clap left her clinging even more tightly to her aunt. Jesse snorted and left the room to get himself a midnight snack. Sometimes it wasn't so helpful that he and his wife had known each other since they were as young as their little niece._

"_Now, child, you listen to me," Lavinia began, lifting Daisy's chin and forcing the little girl to look into her wrinkle-rimmed eyes. "You ought to be thankful for the thunder. Do you know why?"_

_Sun-streaked hair flew as the youngster shook her head. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing good about a thunderstorm._

"_Well, it's just one of the ways the mountains take care of us."_

"_The mountains?" Daisy looked skeptical. Mountains just sat there. They didn't do anything like fighting bullies or chasing away nightmares. Why, they couldn't even prepare a simple meal, which Daisy thought was probably the first step in taking care of someone._

"_Yep. Did you ever notice how in winter it snows up there a lot more than down here?"_

_Daisy hadn't really thought about it before, but now that it had been said aloud, she realized it was true. It almost never snowed in Hazzard, but the mountain tops were frequently whitened in January and February._

"_Them mountains, they catch the snow for us, so's we can look at it, but we don't have to slip and slide in it. And them mountains, they also send us thunderstorms."_

"_Well, how is that good? I don't like thunder and lightning."_

"_Well, child, you may not like them, but the rain that comes with them is good for the corn that grows out there," Lavinia gestured out towards the lightning-streaked fields. Daisy buried her head again for a moment, as the crash of thunder followed._

"_It can rain without thunder," she squeaked out._

"_True," her aunt answered. "But the best, truly soaking rains come because the cool mountain air blows up and over the warm air down here. And all that air mixing up makes the thunder… and the rain," Lavinia simplified. The children would learn the science behind storms in school, when they were fully awake. For now, the middle aged woman just wanted to tell Daisy enough to give the girl half a chance of getting some sleep tonight. _

"_Besides," she informed her niece, "Them mountains there, they send us little storms like this one, and they protect us from bigger storms. See, child? This storm is almost over already."_

_Listening, Daisy realized it was true. The thunder was neither as constant nor as loud as it had been a few moments earlier. _

"_So the mountains give us little things like this, and they watch over us and much sure we don't get bigger, longer storms."_

"_What kind of bigger storms, Aunt Lavinia?"_

_Lifting the child off her lap and standing, Lavinia led Daisy by the hand towards the stairs. _

"_Nothing you need to worry about tonight, sweetie. You'll learn about them in school. For now, let's head on up to bed, and I'll stay with you until you fall asleep, okay?"_

_Just as her aunt had promised, Daisy learned about hurricanes in seventh grade science. By then her aunt was gone, but the little girl understood, as she learned about the giant storms, how the mountains had watched over and protected them from such things._

Of course, Daisy knew that it was theoretically possible for a hurricane to survive this far inland intact. It just rarely happened, and she was trying to believe it wouldn't happen this time, either. But her heart was starting to tell her otherwise.


	5. Very Carefully

_Hey all - thanks to everyone who has been sticking with this story so far, and double thanks to those who take the time to review. When you've had a work week like my last one, those kind words somehow mean twice as much._

_I don't own them, but they own my heart. They don't earn me any cash, though._

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**Chapter 5 - Very Carefully**

"Bo? Luke? Y'all in here?" After she'd told Jesse about her trip to the store and he'd relieved her of her guilt by saying that he'd take the excess food back tomorrow, Daisy's uncle had sent her out to the old barn to help the boys. She knew they had to be back here somewhere, but she was surprised it was so quiet. Her two cousins always talked while they worked, if only to remind one another that each of them was doing more work that the other.

Peering inside the barn and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimness, she was startled when Bo answered from very close to her.

"Yeah, darlin', we're here."

"Bo Duke!" she snapped. "What do you got to go scarin' me for?"

Normally the youngest cousin would have apologized and slung an arm around her in a quick hug, but he'd been at odds with Luke for too long now, and he was testy, too.

"I didn't do it on purpose! What're you doin' sneakin' in here anyways?"

Before things could go further, Luke pulled himself out of his own sulk, and stepped in the middle.

"All right, easy now," he said, sounding every bit like their uncle when he smoothed their ruffled feathers after a spat. If not for the fact that he was glad Luke was back to his normal self, Bo might have been irritated that his older cousin was calming them down when, to Bo's mind, Luke had started it in the first place by arguing over their failed interaction with Jesse. As it was, though, he just joined his cousins in taking a deep breath.

"Uncle Jesse sent me out to help you boys," Daisy finally explained. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

"Aw, sweetheart, you didn't," Bo said. "I guess me and Luke's just too hot or somethin'."

For once, Luke chose not to go along with Bo's simple statement. Normally he wasn't one to admit to his true feelings, but this time he was forced to.

"And we're a little worried about the storm, too, I guess," Luke looked hard at Bo, hoping the blonde wouldn't contradict him. But it was as if Bo needed someone to put words to it, the unnamed discomfort he was feeling. The youngest of the Duke cousins sighed and nodded his head. Suddenly sorry for the way they'd been going at one another, Luke reached out a muscular arm to squeeze Bo's shoulder. The younger man relaxed just slightly under his hand.

"You don't think it's really gonna come here, do you Luke?" Daisy asked, somewhat fearfully. Since seeing all the madness in town, the young woman had been doing her best to regain her emotional balance. Through all the storms, literal and figurative, that they had weathered in the past, she had always counted on her cousins to help her keep something of a level head.

"Prob'ly not," Luke answered. "But we gotta be prepared anyways, and that's makin' us all act a little crazy," he admitted, again looking to Bo, this time in silent apology. The blonde nodded his forgiveness.

The three rested on an old sawhorse. As was their habit, they sat close enough to sweat on one another, and today was just that kind of a humid day. None of them seemed to notice, however, or mind. As Daisy told the boys about the mood of the townsfolk in Rhuebottom's that morning, Bo consoled her with the thought that people being out of sorts didn't cause hurricanes to come their way.

"Daisy?" Luke started, not sure whether this was the right time or not, but knowing he didn't have forever to put it off, "Me and Bo's real worried about Jesse. He ain't so young anymore, but he don't seem to know it." The words brought a gentle smile to his female cousin's face, which convinced Luke that he had chosen the right time to bring this up after all.

"That ain't exactly news, Luke."

"I guess not. Anyways, me and Bo was thinkin' he should evacuate, you know? Just in case the storm comes – and I ain't sayin' it will," he hastened to add.

Daisy's beautiful face registered her own concerns. "His blood pressure was higher last time he let us take him to see Doc Petticord," she reminded them. "If things did get bad here… it wouldn't be good for him."

"Right," Bo said, going with his oldest cousin's flow. This tactic seemed to be working better than the last one they'd tried. "But when we kind of suggested it to him, he got real mad and said he wouldn't leave for nothin'."

Daisy giggled. Boys were so dumb, sometimes. "I believe it. I bet you went about it like a hound on a scent: baying all the way."

With an elbow to Luke's side, Bo snickered. "It was _his_ plan!"

Favoring his youngest cousin with a sour look, Luke addressed Daisy. "We was thinkin' that maybe if you was to tell him you wanted to evacuate, but only if he'd go with you…"

"What about you two?"

"Someone's got to stay behind and take care of the crops," Bo reminded her. "Especially since the storm's probably not comin' and we won't get no rain."

Daisy looked doubtful. She didn't want to leave her cousins behind any more than she wanted to let her uncle stay. But there was logic in their argument, so she agreed to try to sway their uncle's opinion.

* * *

The tired family ate quietly, listening to the radio. It had always been a rule in the Duke household that when the plates hit the table, anything electronic got turned off. Dinner was sacred, a chance for the four of them to spend time together. But tonight, as they picked at their meal, they were listening for news of this Hurricane David that might be paying a visit. And today it seemed a lot more likely than it had last night that Hazzard would see at least some part of the storm. According to the latest reports, the winds were stronger and the hurricane had picked up speed, moving northwest. Hazzard was within range of its predicted path. 

"Seems like maybe we ought to step up our preparin'," Jesse said, remaining as steady as he could for his kids. "Just in case." They'd already made a lot of headway, partially dismantling the old barn and bringing the best planks back to the house. While Luke had been up on the ladder securing them across second story windows, Bo had worked below him, screwing plywood over the downstairs panes. Jesse had removed the dead branches from the trees near the house, then hauled them off in his truck, far enough away that they wouldn't do any damage if the wind did pick them up off the ground. The family still had some windows left to cover, plus they needed to prepare the livestock and the inside of the house. "We got a lot left to do," the patriarch reminded them.

"Uncle Jesse," his niece's voice trembled a little, "I'm gettin' worried about this storm."

The boys looked at one another. They couldn't be sure whether Daisy was activating the plan or deviating from it. She looked genuinely upset. Their uncle didn't look too happy either, though he projected confidence for his girl.

"Well, Daisy, it's normal to be a little scared. But we Dukes have been through a lot over the years, and we'll get through this, too."

Daisy nodded, but her eyes remained stormy seas of deep blue. "They're sayin' we could start seeing effects sooner than they thought, though. And Uncle Jesse, I don't wanna stay here if it's comin'."

Luke could feel Bo's eyes on him, but he couldn't answer the question they silently posed. His gut was telling him that Daisy's demeanor was genuine, but he'd seen her literally shuck the pants off a stranger, once or twice. Of course, she'd only done it so the boys could detain whoever it was in order to complete one of Luke's plans. Their charming cousin was a reasonably good actress in her own way, and she could be using that little skill right now. Or she could actually be feeling as miserable as she sounded.

"I been thinkin' about that, sweetheart. I want you and Bo and Luke to go up to your Aunt Katherine's. It's far enough up in the mountains that you should be pretty safe there."

Hair flew as the young woman shook her head. "I want you to come with me, Uncle Jesse."

"Now Daisy, someone's got to stay behind…"

"Not you, though," she said with determination. There were times when Daisy seemed to summon the spirit of their departed Aunt Lavinia, and in the face of those moments, the men in her life were daunted.

"Sweetheart…" Jesse tried to reason, but he didn't get far.

"I ain't goin' without you," his girl told him. "And since I'm goin', that means you're goin' too."

"But I – I – oh dag nabbit! I'm goin' with you," the old man said, giving his nephews the hairy eyeball so they wouldn't smirk.

But they weren't laughing. They were somewhere between amazed and worried. Jesse must really think there could be some danger, if he'd given in like that.

* * *

"Told you I had a Plan B." Luke's face was serious, but Bo had known him his whole life. Those eyes indicated a gentle con. 

"Daisy did it, not you." The boys were stripping off their shirts and jeans, getting ready to sleep in their boxers. It was too hot and sticky to wear anything more. The window of their bedroom was open, but the planks that covered the outside of the opening let only the tiniest bit of fresh air in. Which hardly mattered, considering that the night was as heavy with humidity as the day had been, both outside and in.

"It was my plan. She just executed it."

"You ain't gonna tell me you expected it to go that way," Bo said, his face the very image of disbelief. Luke gave him the eyebrow. "Okay, you're gonna tell me that. But you ain't gonna expect me to believe it, right?"

"Believe what you want, cousin. It worked. Jesse's goin'." The rest of the evening, after dinner, had been spent making arrangements. Katherine was expecting her favorite guests, and Jesse had provided his boys with enough instructions about taking care of the homestead in his absence to fill two or three family bibles.

Seeing that his cousin was already halfway into his bed, Luke snapped off the light and climbed into his own bunk, just an arm's length away.

"Lukas?" Uh-oh. Something was bothering Bo, or he wouldn't have used that name.

"Yeah?"

"I'm startin' to think this thing could really come here."

"I know. We'll handle it, Bo."

"How do you handle a hurricane?" Bo asked, his voice in that high-pitched range that indicated one of two things: he was either upset or confused. Or, probably, both.

Luke tried humor. "Very carefully," he answered, and the boys chuckled. It was dark in the room, so they couldn't see that neither of them was really very amused. But they didn't need eyes, not to tell them what the other was thinking. Like breathing, knowing each other's minds came naturally to them, and kept them healthy.

Their uncle knew them, too. After a slight knock, he cracked to door to check on them.

"Best get to sleep quickly, boys. We got a lot to do in just a little time tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

"And don't you be thinkin' you pulled a fast one on me, neither. I know you boys was behind Daisy's words tonight," he scolded. Then he sighed, stepping into the room. With a gentle squeeze to each of his nephews' work hardened shoulders, he added, "And I love you for it. I'm madder than heck that it worked, but I appreciate that you care about me enough to take the chance of me takin' you over my knee."

Bo giggled.

"Don't you boys get smart, now. I might still tan your hides when this is all over. So you just be quiet and go to sleep."

"'Night Uncle Jesse," Luke said, and the old man surprised him by kissing first him, then his younger cousin on the forehead. Though he was too old for such things, Luke had to admit, the gesture somehow calmed his overworked mind.

"Love you, Uncle Jesse," Bo said, speaking for them both, something he'd done since childhood, when it had become apparent to the blonde that Luke felt these things, but somehow couldn't say them.

"I love you too, boys."


	6. Someone's Got to Look After the Farm

_Hey all - you'll notice with this chapter that, just like I did in_ Cousin, Mine_, I am_ _going on the theory that the boys' probation keeps them confined to the state, not the county. The series was inconsistent on this, and I chose the option that worked best for me. Besides, once I create a universe, I kind of keep my stories confined to it (most of the time)._

_There is a certain realism to this story, which will only get more "real" in some upcoming chapters. Right now that realism is keeping the story in a less active phase, but that will pass soon enough..._

_Thanks to those who have been reading, and double thanks to those who take the time to review. All of our lives are very busy, I know (believe me!). I appreciate that you all take the time._

_The Dukes are not mine. The story is, though!_

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**Chapter 6 - Someone's Got to Look After the Farm**

Disoriented, Bo awoke to the sound of movement beside him.

"Cousin?" he called quietly into the darkness. It must be the middle of the night. Sometimes his cousin had trouble sleeping, a trait that had led to more than one pre-dawn conversation between the boys. Though he was usually tired the next day, Bo loved those nighttime discussions, and wouldn't trade them for a week's worth of solid nights of sleep. Luke tended to be a little less guarded in the dark. Bo knew him better than anyone, but even the youngest Duke had to enjoy of Luke's openness when it came, which certainly wasn't every day.

"Hey, Bo." Luke answered. "Best get up now. It's already getting late."

"How can that be?" the blonde asked, forcing his mind to awaken fully. "S'too dark."

"We boarded over the window, remember? So the sun's already rising, but it ain't shining in here 'cause light don't pass through wood."

"Funny, Luke." Bo wasn't in the mood for a lesson in the physics of light just now. He wasn't ready for logic at all; he'd thought this would be one of their more relaxed conversations.

"Come on," his older cousin urged, gently. "We got a lot to do today."

"Yeah," Bo answered, suddenly feeling alert. He still didn't know whether he thought Hazzard would feel the effects of a hurricane any time soon, but he was certainly coming to believe that he wanted to be ready, one way or the other.

It seemed odd to need artificial lighting at dawn in the summer, but Bo wasn't interested in taking all morning to get dressed either, so he quickly snapped on the light that stood on the bed stand. Both he and Luke groaned and winced at the sudden brightness.

"Bo!" Luke complained. With his light-colored eyes, the brunette was even more sensitive to light than his cousin was.

"Sorry, cuz," Bo answered, looking up at the older boy for the first time this morning. Luke was already mostly dressed and would soon be heading out of the room for the day. But Bo noticed that Luke had one hand on his gut, a sign that he wasn't quite feeling up to par. His older cousin was a silent worrier, a trait that led to an uneasy stomach from time to time.

"You okay, buddy?" Bo asked, standing and placing a hand on the brunette's shoulder.

Luke's eyes swung away like they always did when he needed a moment to himself. Bo knew his older cousin didn't like to be caught feeling off-center in any way, either emotionally or physically.

"Yeah, I'm all right," Luke answered quietly, before looking back at his cousin. "I'll see you downstairs. Don't take too long. We don't want Jesse and Daisy gettin' a late start because of us."

Bo let him go. Years of experience had taught him not to corner Luke. The younger boy would just keep an eye on him through the day. They had a lot to do, but there was no reason for Luke to make himself sick.

* * *

Daisy wasn't really looking forward to this little trip to town, but it was one of the things that had to be done before she and Jesse could get on the road. The boys were starting to get a little antsy, worrying about their kin. No one outside of the family would have been able to tell, but Daisy was watching the little things, like the way Bo's eyes would flick towards his older cousin when Luke wasn't looking, and the fact that the already deep-set lines on Luke's face seemed just slightly more prominent today. She wanted to put her family at ease, but knew that that power was beyond her, and for once, beyond any of them, even her Uncle Jesse. 

After yesterday's trip to town, the young woman fully expected to encounter insanity today, but was surprised that, aside from a certain amount of vehicular traffic heading out Route 36, and some workers boarding up windows, the heart of Hazzard seemed unusually quiet. There was no one in the square, and only a few people moving quickly from bank to store, or from store to car. For the second day in a row, Daisy felt like maybe she'd gotten lost on her way to the town she'd grown up in, and found herself in some strange neighborhood that looked like home, but wasn't. Shaking her head to clear it of such odd and unhelpful thoughts, Daisy forced herself to head to the county building where she assumed the County Commissioner could be found. With Boss, you could never be sure. He had commandeered space all over the county, and referred to each one as his office.

The squad room in the sheriff's station was quiet, and the young woman almost didn't notice the deputy that sat behind the desk towards the back.

"Hi, Enos, sugar," she called, smiling as he looked up at her and quickly became slightly pink. Even on the worst of days, watching this sweet young man respond to her simple presence brought some cheer into her life. She knew it wasn't completely fair, because he loved her in a way that she hadn't been able to bring herself to return. But he asked so little and gave so much that she couldn't help but adore him in her own way. "Is Boss here?" she asked, reminding herself that she shouldn't stay in town any longer than was strictly necessary.

"No, Daisy," Enos answered, grinning widely despite the negative answer he was giving her. "He's over at the bank."

"Thank you, sweetheart," she said, hardly thinking about her words, and completely oblivious to the way they brought the deputy's cheeks from pink to scarlet. As the young woman turned to leave the station, she suddenly remembered herself.

"Enos, you got someplace to go in case this Hurricane David comes?"

"Well, you know I got to be right here, protectin' the citizens of Hazzard, Daisy. Why?"

"Enos, I don't want you goin' through the storm alone. What if somethin' was to happen to you? Who would know you was in trouble? Why don't you come with me and Uncle Jesse to Nashville? My Aunt Katherine, she would just love to have you for a guest."

"Now, Daisy, that's awful nice of you, but I got to stay here and help other people. Besides, I won't be alone. Why, the sheriff's got to stay, too."

Realizing the wisdom in her friend's words, the young woman backed off from her offer, even if her concerns did not diminish.

"Well, you just be real careful, Enos. You and Rosco take care of each other, you hear?"

"We will, Daisy. You and Uncle Jesse, you just do the same."

It was hard to believe, sometimes, that the same little boy who grew up with what seemed like permanently scraped knees from one clumsy incident or another, could now be in such a responsible position in her community. But there was no one outside of her family that Daisy trusted more than Enos, and she knew he took his job seriously. Aside from being honest, the deputy was earnest, and so far had remained untouched by the cynicism that surrounded him at work. If there was actually going to be a major weather event in Hazzard, Daisy was glad that Enos would be there to help anyone in need. These were the thoughts that chased the young woman as she left the county courthouse and headed for the bank, to see a man she had no interest in talking to.

By the time she reached Boss's bank office, Daisy was more than a little punchy, figuring she was in for a fight from the fat man in white. With a puff from his cigar, the commissioner looked up to find a formidable looking young woman in his midst.

"Why, Daisy Duke. What are you doin' scarin' me like that?"

"Yeah!" Daisy hadn't noticed the sheriff standing slightly away from his boss, but she should have known that where one was, the other was likely to be. "What do you think you're doin'? Scarin' my little, fat buddy that way! Why, I oughta cuff ya…" But his heart wasn't really in it.

"Dat! Rosco, you just hush."

"I'm sorry Boss, I didn't mean to scare you. I was lookin' for you, and Enos said you was here so…"

"All right, all right, you found me. Now what do you want?" The old man was clearly not interested in wasting his time talking to a Duke.

"Yeah, you found him, ijit! So whaddya want?" Rosco echoed. Daisy should have been annoyed by the constant nattering, but she was a sympathetic girl who knew the sheriff's habits by now. He wouldn't be making half as much noise if he wasn't worried about the approaching storm.

"Well, I just wanted to tell you, I ain't gonna be at work for a couple of days. Me and Uncle Jesse's goin' to Nashville 'til the storm passes."

"Oh, well, that's nice," Boss said absently.

"Gij, that's nice."

"That's nice?" Daisy asked. "Ain't you gonna get mad or nothin'?" She ought to have been grateful, but the young woman was just too surprised. "Whaddya mean, 'that's nice'?"

Shaking his head at the unexpected outburst, Boss came back to himself. "Well, I oughtta dock you a month's pay for leavin' without givin' me more notice," he mumbled around his cigar. "But seein' as the Boar's Nest is gonna be closed, you just go. I expect you back here the minute that there storm has passed, though." Finally, his normal scowl was back.

"Ijit! The minute it has passed, not one minute more!" Rosco said with that irksome little smile.

"Rosco, you just hush!"

"But Boss…"

"Dat! You just go somewhere else and pretend to be a sheriff or something, would you?"

Looking slightly chastised, Rosco left the room, muttering all the way.

Glancing back at Daisy, Boss Hogg dismissed her. "You just go on, Daisy Duke, and you take your whole family with you."

Daisy didn't know what to make of the suggestion, but knowing the commissioner like she did, she figured there was some kind of trap in his words.

"Oh no, the boys ain't goin'. Just me and Uncle Jesse."

"Why? Just about everyone in the county's leavin'," Boss said. "Them boys… they ain't stayin' on account of their probation, are they? I'll give 'em permits to travel out of the state…" The man in white looked genuinely concerned.

"No, it ain't that, Boss." Daisy was glad to hear that the boys could get permits if they needed them, though. "It's just, someone's got to take care of the farm."

"Oh, well in that case…" Jefferson Davis Hogg had earned his reputation of being selfish and callous over many years. But there had been a time, long ago, when he and Jesse Duke had been friends. He'd seen his childhood playmate go through the loss of almost all of his family. And even though he and the farmer had fallen out of their friendship well before Jesse adopted the three kids he'd eventually raised, J.D. had watched the family from afar. The Dukes were a thorn in his side these days, but when it really came down to it, Boss couldn't stand the idea of Jesse losing any more of his kinfolk. "You tell them cousins of yours to be careful, you hear?"

"I will, Boss. And thank you," she said sincerely.

"Dat! Just get out of here, Daisy Duke!" It wouldn't do to let anyone, especially a Duke, see him go soft. The commissioner had a reputation to uphold. Besides, when things got back to normal in a couple of days, he knew he would have long forgotten any concerns he might have today.

Daisy got while the getting was good. She was headed to her car when one more thought occurred to her. She knew her family needed her at home as soon as possible, but she also knew that her cousins and uncle were busy at the moment, moving the livestock from their barn into the nearest Indian caves, less than a mile form the farm. This had been Luke's idea; the state emergency management official had recommended turning the animals loose and letting them find their own shelter, but Daisy's older cousin had come up with his own plan, which seemed much smarter. Of course, Mr. Green didn't know Hazzard had caves. In any case, the men in her family would be busy for a little while yet, so she could make this last stop. She walked past her car.

Swinging around the corner, Daisy found Cooter, butt first. Over her lifetime, she'd seen his back end a lot more than his front, since his nose was usually in an engine while his rear was hanging there for all to see. In this case, the mechanic was hovering over an old station wagon, while the family that belonged to it sat on the curb, fidgeting nervously. The man in the family stood and walked up next to Cooter, just as Daisy approached. When she got close enough, the young woman could hear them speaking.

"Well, Mr. Gartner, I'm gonna put a temporary seal on this here gasket. I don't want you to go no more than 500 miles before you get a real replacement, though, you understand me? This is just a temporary fix."

"Thank you, Cooter," the relieved-looking man said. "So long as we can get to Montgomery, we'll be all right."

"It'll get you that far, but I want you to get it fixed permanent there. Now you just take them kids of yours and get some breakfast. I'm gonna work quick as I can, but it'll still be a good half hour."

Again, the Hazzardite thanked Cooter, and turning towards his family, spotted Daisy. With a wave to the young woman he'd known since she was small, Keith Gartner gathered his family and headed to the café on Hazzard Square.

"Cooter," Daisy half-greeted, half implored.

"Hi, sweetheart!" The mechanic answered her with a wide grin that seemed to indicate that he had not a care in the world.

"Cooter," she tried again with a frown. This was a man who was too lighthearted for her tastes. "When you're done with that, you got anything else you gotta fix?"

"Nope. Why, you got a problem you need ol' Cooter to take care of?" he asked, concern for his friend wiping the smile from his face.

"It ain't that. If you got nothin' to fix here, why don't you come with me and Uncle Jesse to Nashville? I don't think you should stay here alone." Up until last year, Cooter's parents had lived here in Hazzard, at the old Davenport farm. However, now fully retired, old Jerome Davenport had up and moved to Dallas, fulfilling his lifelong dream of living in Texas, and taking his poor, long suffering wife with him. This left Cooter, finally, with full responsibility for the Hazzard Garage and the Davenport homestead.

"I'll be all right, Daisy. Don't you worry about old Cooter, now. I can handle myself."

Despite her own unease, the beautiful young woman had to laugh. Cooter's idea of taking care of himself and hers were quite different. The beer belly that overhung his belt was all the evidence Daisy needed that Cooter didn't exactly look out for himself in the way Daisy thought he should.

"Sugar, you can take care of yourself like a chicken can chop wood."

"Well, this here chicken's got hisself an axe and he's sure gonna try," her friend answered, trying, and failing, to look hurt. "You and Jesse's goin', huh? Leavin' them cousins of yours behind?"

With a shrug that showed how little she liked the idea of that last part, Daisy said, "Someone's got to look after the farm."

"Well don't you be worryin' sweetheart. With me and them boys stayin' behind, Hazzard will be just fine."

Seeing that she would get nowhere with her greasy friend, Daisy kissed his cheek, wished him the best, and headed back to her car. She wasn't worried about how the town would fare. It'd been around longer than the Duke clan had lived there, though it had gone through a few name changes before settling on Hazzard back at the turn of the century. No, she was worried about the people, not the place, and despite Cooter's confidence, Daisy couldn't help but feel that most of the men in her life were in a great deal of danger.


	7. Watch the Birds

_Hey y'all! The story continues - both here and on my computer. I gotta warn you, this one gets longer every day. I'm almost done, but then I have been for a few weeks now._

_Thanks for sticking with me so far, and special thanks to those who review. You're keeping me sane, and right now, that's saying a lot. When you read about the mild-mannered grant writer that up and murdered her bosses one day, you'll know that's me._

_I don't own 'em, but I sure would like to spend some time with 'em, on some moonlit night, in some quiet place... I digress. Don't earn a thing for what I do with 'em, either in my dreams or here._

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**Chapter 7 – Watch the Birds**

"I told you Maudine wouldn't give us a hard time," Jesse's voice was up in that range that indicated his boys had teased him too far. "She ain't half as stubborn as the two of you think. You just gotta know how to talk to her."

"She don't listen to no one but you," Bo answered hotly.

Daisy had to grin from where she stood in the living room, piling her bags on top of her uncle's. The radio was on in the kitchen, but her noisy kin talked over it, as they came in from their morning project.

"She don't hardly listen to him, neither," Luke agreed.

"She seemed kind of spooked," Bo said. "Like she knew somethin' was comin'."

"Of course she did," Jesse snapped. "All them animals, they know better'n people about these things. You boys… just watch the birds. When they all hunker down, preparin' time is done, and it's just time to get safe."

"Speakin' of gettin' safe, it's time you and Daisy got goin'. There ain't much preparin' left, except boardin' up the last of the windows, and me and Bo can do that."

"There's preparin' lunch, and that's what we're agonna do right now," their uncle insisted. "We's a family, and we's gonna eat together like a family."

Daisy joined the rest of her kin in the kitchen to assemble some sandwiches. While she was at it, she made some extras for the road. It wasn't a fancy lunch, but all of the Duke kids knew that it wasn't what was on the plates that mattered to their guardian. These last few minutes together, just talking, were what he needed.

The radio continued to play in the background, and the family listened from time to time, but mostly Jesse gave his boys so many instructions that Bo was grateful that there were two of them to try to remember them all. Their uncle was not known for making such abrupt statements as he was now; normally he'd tell two or three stories on the way to his point.

While Jesse continued to lecture his boys on everything he could think about that might remotely relate to taking care of the place in a storm, Daisy cleaned the kitchen for the last time.

None of them knew exactly when it had happened, but they had gone from laughing at the very idea of a hurricane in Hazzard to believing that one was on its way. The skies seemed to be confirming their thoughts, with the way the humidity was slowly congealing into clouds. And in the last fifteen minutes or so, the Atlanta AM news station had indicated that the storm was strengthening and taking a slight turn northwest. It seemed to be on its way.

"We'll be fine, Uncle Jesse," Luke said, finally growing tired of the old man's worries. "I know ain't neither of us been through a hurricane before, but we'll be all right." The oldest cousin was trying to convince himself as well as his uncle, because truth be told, Jesse's concerns were making him nervous. He hated to admit it to himself, but he wanted his guardian gone so he could think clearly.

"He's right, Jesse," Bo added. More than anything, Bo wanted to cut his own worries in half, and he knew he'd be able to do so, once Jesse and Daisy were on their way to a safer location.

"All right boys, we're a-goin'," the old man said, picking up a couple of the suitcases from the couch while his boys gathered the rest.

Quickly packing the pickup, Jesse could see in his boys' eyes their eagerness for him to be on the road.

"You could at least pretend to be sorry to see us go," he grumbled, his tone somewhere between humor and sadness.

That did it for Luke. He wished, not for the first time in his life, that protecting kin was a simple thing, like locking a safe to protect material valuables. But you couldn't box people up, and in truth, he wouldn't want to.

As a little boy, the brunette had been aware that the Duke clan had experienced more than its share of loss. He'd seen sadness in his new guardians' eyes when he and Bo had first come to the farm, and over the years he'd borne witness to even more sorrow. He wanted nothing more than to somehow protect the whole bunch of them from ever looking and feeling that way again. But he'd watched, as Daisy's father died, then their Aunt Lavinia passed some years later, powerless to make it stop, and unable to protect himself or those around him from the pain.

He hadn't exactly planned it, but somewhere in the last few years, Luke had begun to see himself as the up and coming Duke patriarch. Always protective of the younger members of his family, he now felt a fierce need to take care of the last of the older generation as well. His uncle wasn't young anymore, something Luke had noticed during an unguarded moment one day, looking at the man and wondering just when he'd started to look like someone's grandfather.

But this desire to see no harm come to his family didn't keep the oldest of the Duke cousins from sometimes feeling like he was still just a kid. And right now, being half-scolded by the old man he was trying so hard to take care of, Luke was spun back to younger years, when his greatest concern in life was worrying whether the man who had adopted him would be disappointed in him for some small infraction or other. Now he worried less about the old man's anger, for it was strong and virile, and Luke firmly believed it kept his uncle alive. No, it was more the sadness that Luke couldn't bear to see. And in shuffling his uncle off so quickly, protecting him physically, he'd somehow hurt him emotionally. These things ought to be easier, he thought, and crises should come with a manual.

All these things flashed through his head in the moment that it took for Luke to cross from where he'd been placing suitcases in the truck bed to where his uncle stood. His light blue eyes tinged with emotions stronger than he liked to feel, he grabbed hold of the man that had raised him.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Jesse. I'll miss you somethin' fierce."

Caught off-guard, Jesse returned the hug all the same.

"Steady, Luke," he said quietly enough so that his other children wouldn't hear. "I'll miss you, too. But we'll be all right, all of us, so don't you fret." With a thump to his oldest's back, he added, "I love you boy."

"Me too, Uncle Jesse," Luke answered, pulling himself away from his uncle and out of the sudden emotional whirlpool he had slipped into, unawares.

Letting go of one nephew, Jesse approached the other, who had instinctively picked up Luke's mood and was looking a little distressed.

"You and Luke take care of each other, you hear?" It seemed odd to tell the younger to take care of the older, but just like he knew every board that made up the old Duke farmhouse, he knew every emotion in his two boys' hearts. Luke would take care of Bo; he didn't need to be reminded. The younger boy, on the other hand, had a habit of worshipping his big cousin, and his uncle needed to help him see that Luke was human, too, and sometimes needed some looking after.

"Yes, sir, Uncle Jesse," Bo answered, burying his head in his uncle's shoulder. It was just like his youngest to hold onto him so tightly and snuggle this close. The boy had been an infant when he came to be in Jesse's care, and the old man sometimes wondered whether it his and Lavinia's doing or just something natural in the boy that made him so affectionate. It didn't matter. Bo's loving side brought out the best in all of them.

Finally finding his way back out of Bo's long arms, Jesse favored his kids with one more piece of advice: "Remember what I said about watching the birds. You can watch the skies, too, but when the animals hunker down, you do the same. And don't you come out until the storm is over, you hear? No matter what. Don't fall for the eye, neither. You might get that calm in the middle, and you might not. But even if you do, you don't know how long it'll last before the world starts blowin' around again. So don't go outside 'til you know for sure that it's done."

"Yes, sir."

The boys each took Daisy into their arms, admonishing her to drive carefully and take care of their uncle. "Call us when you get there," Bo said. "We'll keep an ear out for the phone."

"I will, sugar," she promised, sliding into the driver's seat of the pickup. Her own car, along with the rest of the family's vehicles, was currently stashed in the barn. Starting the old truck and putting it in gear, Daisy took a long look at the house she'd grown up in, then the boys she loved like brothers that were standing in the yard, waving to her. Blinking away useless tears, the young woman drove away, wondering whether this was what her Aunt Katherine had felt like when she had left Hazzard all those years ago.

* * *

Bo couldn't help but notice that his cousin seemed to be suffering a little after lunch. Sometimes food helped a complaining stomach, but this didn't seem to be one of those times. 

"What do we got left to do?" the blonde asked. If it wasn't all that much, maybe he could suggest that Luke try to catch a nap while the younger boy worked.

"We gotta board the rest of the windows and then do our best to protect them from the inside as well, plus finish knocking down that old barn," Luke said, ticking things off on his thick fingers. "But first things first. Since we don't know when this thing's comin' and Daisy said town was already emptying out, we gotta go get some gas for that old generator. Just in case."

"Why don't you rest some, Lukas? I can go into town."

With a half-dirty look, his older cousin refused. "I'm fine, Bo. Let's just go."

The boys loaded some feed and a bale of hay into their car before sliding through the windows and turning the car towards town. They would stop on the way back to the farm to take care of the livestock as best they could. They didn't know how many trips they'd get to make before the storm, and they needed to make every one count.

The overhead skies didn't seem terribly different from any other cloudy day, but the boys watched them anyway, as they drove. Their school days seemed like a long time ago, and hurricanes were only discussed in eighth grade science class. The boys really had no idea what to expect.

Nor were they prepared for downtown Hazzard, not as it appeared that day. Neither of them had ever seen the place looking so uninviting, what with no one on the street except a few men still boarding over large windows on the front of the courthouse. The stores were closed, and most of them had plywood plastered across their fronts as well.

"Looks like a bad neighborhood in New York City," Bo commented.

With a sarcastic look, Luke asked, "How would you know?"

"I don't know, Luke, same way you would, from pictures and stuff," Bo answered grouchily. He was tired of Luke pointing out how little he knew.

For his part, Luke hadn't expected that response, and he had only been making the observation, like he would about the likelihood of owning an expensive car or dating an unobtainable girl, that Bo had never been, and would likely never go to New York. He started to answer back, but decided that now was not the time to be feuding.

"Sorry, Bo, I wasn't thinkin'," Luke said as he parked the car in front of the garage. They were both getting a bit testy.

"Yeah, well," Bo almost continued to argue, but changed his mind midstream. "Me too, Luke. It's just… weird seein' Hazzard lookin' like this, is all."

"You got that right."

Before the boys could slide all the way out of the windows of their car, Cooter was there, greeting them both.

"Daisy told me you two was stayin' behind. Sure you can handle it?" Leave it to Cooter to jump right in with both feet, without checking first to see how deep the water was. But it turned out to be a good thing.

"Better'n you can, you city boy," Bo answered back with a grin.

"City boy? Who you callin' a city boy?"

"I think he's just sayin' that you ain't exactly built for dealing with a workin' life, my man," Luke said with a thump on the mechanic's back. "You just kind of stand around here in town all day playing with wrenches and stuff instead of doing real work."

"Like pitching hay…"

"Or fixing a roof…"

"Or plowing a field…"

"With a mule…"

"Or talkin' trash like you boys do, all day long," Cooter butted in. In truth he was glad to see the Duke boys and to know they were staying, too. With the way the town was emptying out, he was starting to wonder about the wisdom of his own plans to stay behind. "Y'all want to stay in town with me?" Cooter asked, his face growing serious. "This here building ain't much, but it's better shielded than your house is out there in the middle of nowhere. B'sides, if it gets too bad, we could always go to the courthouse. It's sturdy, and most people that're stayin' will be there."

"Aw, Cooter, thanks, but we gotta take care of the farm," Bo answered, pulling the dented gas can from the General's trunk. "We just came to get some gas for the old generator, just in case."

"All right, well you boys just be real careful out there, you hear? Don't go blowin' away on me."

Luke knew a comrade when he saw one. Cooter was worried about them, about the storm, about his business, and he was masking it through jokes.

"We'll be all right buddy," Luke said, uncharacteristically throwing his arms around his oldest friend. "You just watch out for yourself, you hear?"

Having filled the gas can, Bo also hugged the mechanic. "I know you want to stay here and make sure the garage is all right, but… if you change your mind, you can always stay with us, buddy."

"I know it," Cooter said, watching as his friends got into their car to leave.

The sky was giving away no state secrets, not yet. All three men scanned it for answers, without luck.

"Keep close on the C.B.," Cooter said. "As long as you can…"

"You too," Luke said, and then they were gone, leaving behind an anxious friend.


	8. The Smell of Rain in the Air

_Hi all! Thanks for sticking with this one so far, and special thanks to those who have been reviewing._

_If you've read my profile, you know I have quite a bit of experience with hurricanes. I'm actually not proud of this little fact. I mean, if it happens once, you can say, what bad luck. If you stay put and it happens a second time, you kind of have to say, what is wrong with this picture. If you still stay put and it happens a third time, it's like a horror movie. Everyone that is watching is screaming, "Get out, you idiot!"_

_It took awhile before I got. And even now, I am not exactly out of the hurricane zone. Anyway, this long winded introduction is really to say - every hurricane is unique. Even the three I went through were very different experiences from one another. My point is, if you were glued to the TV through Katrina, that is one kind of experience. If you remember Andrew, that was something else entirely. Some hurricanes flood people out of their homes, and others blow houses down. Most do not have such catastrophic affects upon those they hit._

_I've incorporated a lot of my own experiences in here, especially starting with the next chapter. _

_I don't own them, just the things that I do to them. _

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**Chapter 8 – The Smell of Rain in the Air**

The trip into town followed by checking up on the livestock should have taken an hour, tops, but thanks to Rosco, it had taken closer to two. After leaving Cooter, the boys had headed straight for the Indian caves, for once not taking a "shortcut" that would lead them through more challenging territory. Luke had reminded Bo that today was not a day to get stuck in the mud somewhere. When Bo complained that there was no mud, thanks to the dearth of rain, and Luke had exasperatedly told him that if there was one muddy spot in all of the county, Bo would find a way to get them stuck in it. And today, they didn't have time, and they couldn't be sure that anyone would be around to help them get out. Both boys were tired of being annoyed at each other, so they let the dispute drop, and Bo stuck to the roads.

Zipping along at an exactly legal 55 mph, Bo was still trying to let go of the tension between him and his cousin, while Luke was mentally ticking off what else they needed to accomplish before the now heavier skies turned truly stormy. Neither of them was imagining that Rosco would actually be patrolling this road, so the siren took them both by surprise.

"What is he thinkin'?" Bo growled in frustration.

"I don't know, Bo, but we ain't got time to spend with him today. Get rid of him, but don't be too flashy about it, just do it."

"You mean don't have fun," Bo said, grinning. For the first time in 24 hours, things felt normal to him. He felt himself relax into a very natural state of mind. He was enjoying this, and hoped Luke would, too. They could both use the break.

The brunette didn't relax entirely, but he did chuckle as he saw what Bo was up to. Skirting the rim of the road, the younger Duke boy fairly dared Rosco to slip off into the drainage ditch at the side. Luck must have been with the sheriff, because all three of them knew that it wasn't skill them kept him on the blacktop.

Executing a tidy ninety-degree turn, Bo scooted up an older dirt road that would lead past the back end of the Duke farm, and if they followed it long enough, would take them to the caves and the livestock that awaited them. Behind them, Rosco attempted the same smooth movement, but succeeded only in overshooting. Car undamaged, he corrected his steering and continued on after his prey.

The Dukes were pretty much on home territory now, and could lead this chase any way they chose. Hurricanes forgotten for the moment, Luke suggested a little off road excursion through some shrubs that ought to obscure their car and leave the sheriff wondering what kind of magic wand they'd used to make themselves disappear. Slowing slightly to make the turn, Bo didn't count on the sheriff having the terrible judgment to speed up behind him, but he probably should have. The youngest cousin had spent more time outrunning the law of Hazzard than he had kissing girls, and considering he was Bo Duke, that was a lot.

The result of the lead car slowing and the chasing vehicle speeding up was rather predictable, except to one Rosco Coltrane, who seemed unable to grasp such simple physics. With a goodly thump, the cars spun off to opposite sides of the road, the squad car emerging with a simple ding in its front bumper. The General, with its powerful engine, didn't fare as well, it back wheels spinning it off the road to land half-on and half-off a small boulder. With a lurch, it stopped moving.

"You okay?" It was automatic to Luke. The first order of business was determining Bo's safety.

"Only thing that's hurt is my pride," Bo lamented, as the boys began to hoist themselves out to inspect the damage.

"Rosco!" Bo started, advancing on the patrol car. Leaving his cousin to give the sheriff what-for, Luke walked around to the back of the boys' car.

"Dang it!" the older boy growled.

"Ijit! Look what you done to my car!" Rosco emerged from the cruiser, tongue moving all the while. "It was... I just… That's a new bumper! Gijit!"

"Rosco, don't you go blamin' us…" Bo started.

"Yeah! Was you that hit us!" Luke finished.

The sheriff hated facing both of these boys at once, which was how he almost always had to deal with them. If you got one Duke boy, you got both; it was a simple fact of life in Hazzard. When the two of them started moving towards Rosco as one, the sheriff could see that the work-strengthened muscles in their arms and the looks on their faces indicated a readiness for a fight. How had things gotten so far out of control so quickly?

"Bo… now, Luke… listen you boys. I didn't – ijit! – I didn't mean for this to happen, now. I was just stoppin' you to tell you that I think you should, gyu, you should do what you need to do quickly, jit, then get on home. This thing, gyu, this storm, it's coming faster than they thought. They're saying it could be here tonight, ijit!"

"So what you're tellin' me, Rosco, is that you ran us off the road and broke an axle on the General here, just so's you could tell us to get home and be safe?"

That Luke Duke, he was nothing if not logical. The sheriff struggled to answer him on his own terms.

"Well, now, to be fair, boys, you didn't stop for my gumballs, there. Gij! You ain't supposed to go faster when I turn them on, you're supposed to stop."

"Is that so?" Bo asked, as if this was news. "Did you know that, Luke?"

"Well, I'll be. Maybe we'd do that, if you wasn't always trying to frame us for one thing or another, Rosco." Normally Luke enjoyed this game; it was, after all, something he and Bo had become quite good at. But today he couldn't afford to play. "Never mind, Rosco. Listen, you got us racked up like this; now you gotta help us out."

* * *

Within a couple of hours the boys were back at the farm, and the General was in town on a forced extended stay with Cooter. The mechanic could work wonders, but he couldn't replace a broken axle without the parts. And the parts would have to stay right where they were, in Atlanta, until after the storm passed. Whether the hurricane was headed through northern Georgia or not, everyone within a couple hundred mile radius was closing down and finding a safe place to ride it out. 

The sheriff had been pressed into service, taking Bo out to the caves to feed the livestock. The blonde hated showing Rosco what had always been a great hideout for the boys, but it was only one of many, and besides, as hard as it was to imagine, the sheriff had once been a little boy, too, and claimed to have played out here back then. So it wasn't like he didn't know about the caves, more like he'd forgotten them. With any luck, he'd forget them again.

For his part, the aging cop was actually glad to be of service. He hadn't meant to run the boys off the road earlier, and he sure didn't want to put them in danger. Despite his longevity in Hazzard, Rosco was not old enough to remember the hurricane of 1926. He'd been an infant then, but he had heard about it throughout his formative years. Not having faced such a weather event, but knowing they were dangerous and that one was headed his way made the sheriff very nervous. And as much as he disliked the Duke boys sometimes, he never wanted to see them hurt. Why, he could remember each of their christenings, could remember holding them when they were tiny, and could remember how hard it had been on the family when their parents had passed. He didn't wish them any real harm.

Luke had stayed with the boys' Charger until Cooter arrived to tow him away. The mechanic had dropped the older Duke boy at the farm before heading back to his garage. Watching the skies get heavier, Cooter hated to leave Luke alone, but the Duke boy wouldn't have it any other way.

"You got stuff to do, too, buddy. Besides, Bo will be home soon as he feeds the livestock."

And true to Luke's word, Bo had arrived within the hour to find his older cousin out at the old barn, destroying the last of it. The boys agreed that their only goal with regard to the old structure was to get it completely demolished and lying flat on the ground, so the remaining boards wouldn't turn into projectiles in any kind of a strong wind. So they worked in silence, banging until nails could no longer hold to wood, and the structure was forced apart. As crazy as the project seemed, it was just what the boys needed: a chance to expel their nervous energy.

As they laid the last board flat, they could smell rain in the air.

"It ain't supposed to start yet, is it?" Bo asked.

"Best get home and turn on that radio," Luke suggested, looking at the darkened skies. "I don't think what's comin' is the real thing, but we'd better find out what the weather guys have to say."

The rain was falling as the boys entered the kitchen. Flipping on the radio, Luke sat down while Bo got them each a glass of lemonade. The day had already been long and full of hard work, and it was only mid-afternoon.

Long forgotten school lessons returned to the Duke cousins as the radio informed them that what they were experiencing now was just the outer bands of the storm. Where the storm would strike land seemed obvious now; it would come in somewhere near the Florida/Georgia border within the next hour.

"Geez," Bo said, really understanding the size of these things for the first time. "Jacksonville's a long ways off, and it ain't even there yet, but we're already gettin' rain from it?"

"That's big," Luke agreed, putting down his now empty glass. "And even though they don't know if it will technically pass right through here… we'd better finish up boarding the house, and quick."

"No kiddin'," Bo said with renewed urgency. Wherever the storm's official path took it, it seemed like Hazzard was going to experience some effects.

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	9. Trajectories and Forward Momentum

_Look Ma, no notes! Except I don't own them and don't earn anything from them..._

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* * *

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**Chapter 9 – Trajectories and Forward Momentum**

The longest arms of the storm were not thoughtful in their treatment of those still protecting their property, and for the Duke cousins that meant boarding over the last of the windows. As was their habit since childhood, Luke worked high while Bo took the lower duty. Long ago, when the blonde had been a good deal shorter than Luke, the practice had begun as a simple practicality. Later, after the incident in which the older boy had dared Bo to walk the crossbeam of the barn with somewhat disastrous consequences, the blonde hadn't been thrilled by heights for awhile, and a guilty Luke had made sure his little cousin never needed to climb higher than he wanted to. Now, easily a dozen years later, when Bo had outgrown his older cousin by several inches, and had returned to his natural daredevil ways, which included being oblivious to heights, the boys still fell back into this old pattern. And as the outer bands of the approaching hurricane drenched them, they worked quickly and quietly.

"Dang it!" Well, mostly they worked quietly.

"What's the matter, cousin?" Bo called up the ladder where his cousin was boarding the second story.

"It's just – the dang water keeps dripping off the eaves and into my eyes. Every time I have to look up, I can't see for all the water in my face."

"Come on down here for a minute. I got an idea." He wasn't usually the one to think of these kinds of things, but Bo was trying to make up for the fact that Luke was obviously just not feeling right today.

The soggy boys met at the foot of the ladder, and Bo slung his arm around Luke's shoulders. The older of the Duke cousins would never admit to feeling anything other than healthy, and the blonde knew not to ask. He also knew that while Luke would accept affection, he'd bark if his younger cousin expressed concern, so Bo gave him what he could take and no more. With a gentle tug, he pulled the older boy into the barn, where the blonde dug into the tool cart until he found a pair of goggles.

"All right, all right, good idea. I should have thought of that, but I wasn't thinkin', mostly just gettin' blinded by all that water coming down on me," Luke acknowledged.

Taking a moment to really look at his cousin, Bo was forced to admit that Luke was, in fact, absolutely soaked to his skin. Bo wasn't exactly dry, but Luke couldn't have been wetter if he'd gone up to their little swimming hole and dived in, jeans, shirt, boots and all. Without thinking about it, the older boy had been doing the rougher duty. Bo knew it was useless to suggest that his sopping cousin go inside and take a break, and even the idea of changing into dry clothes was pointless if the brunette was going to insist on coming back outside to work. So when Luke reached for the goggles, Bo did the only thing left to him; he refused to give them up.

"You take the bottom, Lukas. I'll go up on the ladder for awhile." To his relief, the older boy didn't argue, just nodded his head and led the way back out into the wet misery that the day had become.

The boys worked as quickly as they could, but rain was not helping. From what they understood, the weather should clear somewhat in between the outer bands of the storm, but that relief just never seemed to come. They were finally finishing their work, and Bo was just descending the ladder when, through the sound of the rain on the leaves, the two miserable boys heard what they'd secretly craned their ears for all during this arduous task: the ringing telephone. Certain that it was their kin announcing their arrival in a safer city, both boys moved suddenly to try to get into the house.

Bo underestimated his own stability. Now dripping every bit a much as his cousin was, the blonde couldn't grip the equally wet ladder without slipping. The last few rungs were a blur as the youngest of the Duke cousins went down.

"Bo!" Luke spun at the abrupt thud of a two hundred pound body on the ground. In a blur of motion, Luke skidded into a kneeling position in the mud, next to his cousin. "You all right?"

"Ah, yeah, I think so. I kinda turned my ankle though." The younger boy grimaced as his cousin pulled off his boot began to examine the area in question.

"That hurt?" Luke asked, pushing and pulling at Bo's foot.

"No… yes! Ow, Luke…"

"Sorry, cuz, but that's a good thing, actually. Means you didn't break or sprain it, just twisted it. Come on," and with a supporting arm, the brunette hauled his cousin to his feet. Two sopping and now muddy boys headed for the house, where the phone had stopped ringing some minutes ago.

Feeling his cousin shiver, Luke helped him upstairs to the bathroom with the command that the blonde take a shower. The youngster agreed, but only on the condition that Luke take one after him. The older boy wasn't any warmer, or cleaner, than he was.

"Just do it, Bo, I got other stuff to do. But you holler when you're done. I don't want you walkin' down them stairs on that ankle."

As Luke trudged off to tend to whatever was so important, Bo decided he'd be very quick about it, leaving as much warm water for the older boy as possible. And, that when Luke came back afterwards to help him get down the stairs, he'd refuse to go until brunette had taken his own shower.

* * *

Less than an hour later, a grumbling but clean and relatively dry Luke helped his younger cousin downstairs to sit on the sofa, before heading off to Jesse's bedroom. 

"Don't know why I'm doing this," he muttered under his breath as he lugged his uncle's queen sized mattress out into the living room.

"Me neither, Luke. That part of the instructions didn't make no sense. What's a mattress gonna do? I mean, I know it's supposed to protect the inside of the house if something breaks the window, but how's it gonna do that?"

"Don't know, but then, I don't know nothing about hurricanes."

On a normal day, Bo might have relished Luke's admission that he didn't know something, but this wasn't a normal day. This was a day that was going steadily downhill.

The older boy plopped the mattress in front of the biggest set of windows, shaking his head at the pointlessness of it. Even standing on end, the mattress was neither long enough nor wide enough to cover all the glass.

As Luke struggled with the thing, Bo swallowed a laugh. It was only funny if you weren't worried about a storm that you knew nothing about, and that could be here within hours.

"Luke… give up. It ain't gonna do anything."

"No, there's a reason they told us to do this…" Watching his cousin fight with a floppy piece of furniture was the end for Bo.

"Cousin… please." Bo made a move to get up.

Something between the blonde's earnest request that he quit, and the youngster's attempt to stand, broke through Luke's stubbornness.

"All right, all right," he said, letting the mattress drop to the floor with a resounding thud. With a slight chuckle in between the huffing and puffing, he stepped over to the couch and pulled his cousin back down as he sat.

"You sure looked silly wrestling with that mattress, Luke," Bo snickered.

"Not half as silly as you're gonna look when I get through wrestlin' with you," his cousin retorted.

"Oh, bring it on," Bo taunted.

Knowing his cousin was hurt and not really up to wrestling, the brunette opted for tickling Bo instead, which, of course, resulted in retaliation. For a moment, the two breathless boys were brought back to carefree childhood moments. Bo thought about the fact that he hadn't seen Luke laugh like this in a long time, and that it was probably better for the older boy's obviously ailing stomach than ten glasses of sodium bicarbonate would have been. The cousins hadn't played in exactly this way for a good ten years, and they were enjoying it, until the ringing telephone stopped the game.

"Sit!" Luke commanded as he jumped up to answer it. With a scowl, Bo slumped back down from his half-upright stance.

Before the older boy could even tell him, Bo knew it was their family checking in, just by the way Luke's features relaxed the instant after he picked up the handset.

"Daisy, it's good to hear your voice, sweetheart," he said as he carefully disentangled the cord from all the nearby furniture so he could bring the phone over to his cousin.

As the Duke boys sat close together with the phone between them and listened, Daisy and Jesse told them of an uneventful trip and a warm welcome. When they asked how the boys were doing, Bo began to stammer, so Luke leaned away.

"Uh, we're fine," he said. "Just about all done protectin' the place, and the livestock's been fed. And now that we've talked to you, maybe we'll get us some dinner, what say, Bo?" Looking meaningfully at his cousin, Luke leaned back towards him.

"Yeah, uh, food sounds good," he answered honestly, getting a chuckle all around. Food always sounded good to Bo Duke.

"All right, well now listen, you boys be careful," Jesse began.

"Yes sir, we'll be careful and we'll watch the birds and we won't go outside until it's all over," Bo said, trying to preempt the lecture.

"All right, you do all those things and you watch after each other. Boys… from what they're sayin' on the television," Bo and Luke caught each other's eyes. Jesse had been watching TV? Hell must have frozen over. The old man hated that 'electronic nuisance,' as he called it. "From what they're sayin', it's bad, and it's movin' awfully quick. And it's big so… be careful."

Suddenly contrite, Bo answered, "Yes sir, we will. And you and Daisy watch over each other up there, too."

Having said their goodbyes and hung up the phone, the boys sat on the couch, the tickle fight of a few short minutes ago completely forgotten. Bo watched his older cousin for a minute, for once seeing unguarded emotion on the older boy's face. Luke was tired, and worse, Luke was scared. The idea that his older cousin was anything but calm and collected frightened the blonde, but for once he wasn't going to lean on Luke.

"Come on, buddy," he said, patting Luke's shoulder, "Let's get some dinner. I'm cookin'."

"No you ain't," Luke started, but Bo interrupted.

"Luke, it's just sandwiches; I can sit while I make 'em. An' I can walk there by myself," he added, when his older cousin started to put a supporting arm around him as he rose. Taking in Luke's hurt expression, Bo thought the older boy really must be unwell to be so emotionally transparent to his younger cousin. "I need help up and down the stairs, I'll grant you that. But it don't hurt so bad now; it's just mostly stiff. Come on, you can help me 'cook,' though." Bo slung an arm around his quiet cousin.

"Thought you didn't need help walkin'?" Luke tried a gentle joke while sliding his own arm behind Bo's back and supporting him after all. Bo gave in and let him help. "You're putting ice on that ankle while you make them sandwiches, too."

A few minutes later, the boys sat close together at one end of the table, where they could both see through the front door of the house, which they'd propped open. With all the windows covered, the house was eerily dark, but this didn't bother the boys half so much as the fact that they couldn't watch the sky through boarded windows. So while Bo had assembled their dinner, Luke had located the old doorstop and wedged it under the door so they'd have a visual to go with what they were listening to on the radio. Technically, the storm was still pretty far away, but the boys could see that the wind was picking up. Soon they'd have to close and lock the door, just to keep it hinged to the house.

Bo noticed that Luke wasn't eating much.

"I think we got some ginger ale in the pantry," he said quietly. Luke didn't answer him but did get up to look, returning seconds later with the unopened bottle.

"Did you want some?" he asked, but Bo declined. They both knew why he had suggested it; during their shared childhood, their Aunt Lavinia had cured most of what had hurt their little bellies with ginger ale. It was always the first thing they were given after a stomach bug, and it was the only thing Luke had been able to keep down when he'd been so miserably sick with an intestinal ailment at the age of nine.

Finishing their meal, the boys closed and locked the front door, then took the radio and placed it within listening distance of the back porch, where they set up camp, at least for the moment. They knew they couldn't stay out here long, but the break in the rain that they could have used when they were boarding the last of the windows had finally come. The relative calm wouldn't last, and the wind was already moving the branches of the oaks and maples. But while there was still some light in the sky, both Duke boys wanted to try to see what was coming. Listening to the drone of radio reporters talking about trajectories and forward momentum was about to drive them insane.

To the west, behind where the boys sat, there was a pinkish glow, as the sun tried to set through the heaviness of an outer band. Finding a weak spot in the cloud cover, the sun played its moment for all it was worth, lighting up the sky with oranges and purples.

And, as Luke pointed to the southeast, both boys noticed the black, dark, heavy clouds that looked like a thousand invaders dressed in black and riding dark horses, coming full speed right toward the Duke farm.


	10. The Crack of a Bat

_Hey all! More notes on this one. First - there's something in here that I took from one of the episodes in the series. It was an event that I never could seem to reconcile with the behaviors that the boys exhibited as adults. So I gave it an explanation of my liking. Obviously, there are as many other explanations for that little moment as there are people who've seen that episode! _

_Next - the layout of the Duke farmhouse. Well, it changed over time. I liked the house they used in those first episodes, and never could tell whether it really had a second story or not. But I gave my version of the farmhouse a second floor, as well as some other things that may not jive with someone else's image of the house. So, again, it was just the way I wanted to see things for purposes of this story. Like the Martha/Lavinia debate, it's one of those things that doesn't have a single right answer._

_Thanks to everyone who has been sticking with this story, and double thanks to those who stop and review. I've finished this thing (at least for now - though the last two chapters may get rewritten) and your support helped me through those final gazillion chapters or so._

_Don't own 'em, but they sure are fun to look at, ain't they? They don't earn me any money, though._

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**Chapter 10 – The Crack of a Bat**

The wind and now somewhat sideways-falling rain had forced them inside, where the Duke boys were half-engaged in a game of checkers that neither one cared a whole heck of a lot about. With every good gust, the house seemed to sort of thump and crack, but this was nothing they hadn't heard during the strong winter storms they'd seen while growing up here. Still each time they heard an unpleasant sounding noise, indigo eyes searched out lighter blue for a second before the boys returned their attention to the game in front of them.

Usually Bo hated this game, and it worried him that Luke wasn't trouncing him, as usual. But as the match limped forward in its fits and starts, Bo suddenly realized that Luke was capable of worrying about the sound of the wind and planning strategy at the same time. The blonde had only two possible moves left, both of them disastrous. Just as he was about to give in and make one of them, the lights flickered and died, and the radio silenced. The boys waited for a few moments; this had happened a couple of times before, and each time, the electricity had resumed. After the first blip, they'd CBed Cooter, checking to see if town still had power. It did, and the repeater on the mechanic's roof was still up there, so the three young men were able to wish each other luck and a good night. They promised to seek one another out immediately after the storm.

This time, the lights stayed dark and the radio stayed quiet. Luke started fumbling around for the thing he had been sure was right next to him only a second ago.

"Luke, hey!" his cousin complained when the older boy's elbow accidentally found his ribcage.

"Sorry, cousin, but we can't both be moving at the same time, 'least not 'til we get some light," Luke warned, just as his hand found what it had sought. Flipping on the battery powered flashlight, Luke headed into the kitchen to find a more reliable source of light. Picking up the oil lantern that he'd dug out of the barn while Bo was showering, the older boy struck a match and lit it. The light was dim, not at all what electric light would be, but it was certainly sufficient for the boys' needs. They would save the flashlight for later. Thanks to Daisy's adventure in Rhuebottom's, they had plenty of batteries, but they didn't need to squander them, either.

Deeming the radio a necessity, however, Bo took advantage of the dim lamplight to locate the batteries that would drive it and keep them alert to the progress of the storm. Last they had heard, the eye was still quite some distance away, and the worst was yet to come.

"Well, I see our game is over," Luke commented, noticing that the checkers had been scattered during their search for the flashlight.

"Yeah, too bad about that," Bo agreed with a grin.

"If I didn't know better cuz, I'd swear you did that on purpose, just like you used to when we was little."

Bo groaned his embarrassment while his older cousin laughed at him.

_It was a common occurrence. Why neither of the Duke boys learned not to keep doing it was beyond their adoptive parents' ability to understand, but those kids were born stubborn. At least once a week there would be yelling and occasional bumping coming from the boys' room, and the older couple would look at each other, silently determining who would go up there this time. If it was Jesse, the boys would likely find themselves hauled out to the barn by their ear lobes to clean up after the livestock. If Lavinia went, there would be tears and hugs and promises before she'd bring them down to work in the kitchen. The boys hated both endings, but they never learned not to fight like this._

_Whichever guardian dragged their tired bones up the steps would find the boys' room a disaster of game pieces everywhere, flung that way by Bo after Luke had beaten him once again. Once he'd shoved the board aside, Bo would lunge for his frustrating older cousin, who would usually try to refrain from retaliating. Of course, his method left a little something to be desired. Planting a palm squarely in the middle of the smaller boy's forehead, the brunette would stiffen his long arm, leaving Bo swinging his fists at the air between them. This only made the blonde madder, and frequently amused his older cousin. And, this was the position that their adoptive parents often found them in._

_Luke was older and more careful in his style of playing board games, and he routinely clobbered his little cousin. But Bo refused to give up. It became a mission of sorts, to beat Luke. Once, Lavinia had taken her older nephew aside and carefully suggested that he take it easy on his little cousin. _

"_Maybe you don't need to make your very_ best_ move, Luke. You could just… leave something open."_

_The older boy had grumbled, but to his credit, the next time the boys had played he'd done what his aunt suggested. This had led to the biggest brawl of all, as Bo had very quickly realized that he'd been allowed to win. It wasn't even so much that the victory was tainted, as that he had somehow earned Luke's pity, and that was the last thing he wanted. If he couldn't have the older boy's respect, then there was no point in winning._

"You didn't like to lose, cousin," Luke reminded him. "In fact, you lost almost all the dice to every game we owned, pitching fits the way you did."

"True," Bo admitted. "But when I finally did beat you fair and square, you weren't exactly a great sport neither. I seem to remember you eating your dinner off the mantelpiece that night."

"And for a number of nights after, too…" Luke agreed.

_Bo's behavior wasn't any better when he finally won than it had been in all the times that he'd lost. For once, he'd outplayed Luke at checkers, and he was going to make sure his cousin didn't forget it. _

"_It's just a game, Bo," Luke had said quietly, his voice a warning. Bo knew that tone. When the older boy got quiet, it was time to leave off teasing him. But the blonde didn't. It wasn't every day that he got to gloat at Luke._

"_You're only saying that because you lost. To ME! I won, I won…"_

_The older boy reached around, looking for something, anything, to scare his cousin with. His hand came around front holding onto his baseball bat. It wasn't the best choice, Luke even knew it at the time. But he didn't care. His cousin was pushing him too far._

"_Enough, cousin."_

_Seeing the Louisville Slugger in Luke's hand, Bo began to move. He knew the bigger boy wouldn't really use it on him, but it looked so dangerous there, dangling from Luke's powerful right arm. Farm work had always suited the older of the cousins, and he'd been muscular since young boyhood._

_Dodging out the door of their bedroom and down the stairs, Bo didn't stop taunting as he went. _

"_Luke's a loser, Luke's a loser."_

_Anger got the better of the older boy as he purposefully strode down the stairs and cornered his little cousin in the living room. Even Jesse's bellow as he entered the house, demanding to know what all the noise was about, didn't stop Luke from pulling his arm back, bat and all._

"I wasn't gonna swing at you, though. I just wanted to scare you."

"Well, you scared me all right. Oh, I know you wasn't really plannin' on swingin'. I saw how Jesse comin' up behind made you jump and turn, and the bat just kinda came around. I know it. I remember, clear as day, everything up until…"

"Your head hit that molding there, I ain't forgot. And the bat hit just above you. Split it right up the handle."

"Split my head, too."

"I know. I remember the trip to Doc Petticord. I felt awful."

"Not half as awful as you felt after Jesse took you out to the barn."

"He lit into me pretty good that day, I'll grant you. But I'm gonna tell you somethin', Bo. That whippin' didn't hurt half so bad as watchin' you slide to the ground after you hit your head. You was so white. And Jesse, he pushed me aside to tend to you. I ain't never felt worse, 'cause I couldn't even see you, to know if you was gonna be okay or not."

"My head's pretty hard, Luke. You didn't do no permanent damage."

"Well, that's debatable," Luke said, turning the conversation away from his own guilt. Knowing Bo, if he thought Luke was feeling bad, even if the older boy deserved to feel that way, he'd try anything to cheer him up. And tonight, Luke was going to make sure Bo didn't have to worry about him.

The boys chuckled at their memories, but before the teasing could continue, a crack, echoing the one Luke's bat had made all those years ago, shook the house.

"Did somethin' hit us?" Luke asked no one in particular.

"Don't know," Bo answered in the same manner.

"Ain't nothin' we can do about it, I guess." The way the wind was howling now, they knew better than to even consider going outside.

"Is it even raining? I don't hear no rain." From everything Bo had heard over the last few days, hurricanes dumped a lot of water in their wake.

"Just can't hear it over that wind, I expect."

The boys stopped talking for now. There didn't seem to be anything they could say that would make things any better. Listening to the now somewhat static-punctuated chatter on the radio, they learned that the strongest part of the storm, what was called an eye wall, was currently over Atlanta. Hazzard should expect to experience the worst of the winds within the next hour.

"Worse than this?" Bo commented over the sound that was now more reminiscent of being under a jet as it took off than wind.

Another loud thump and crash above them brought both boys' attention to their second story. The whole house seemed to move with that one. Though they wanted, more than anything, to know how the structure of the upstairs was faring, the Duke cousins knew better than to go up there.

"Uh, Luke?"

"Yeah, let's."

From that town meeting that had taken place what now felt like years ago, but had really been just a couple of days before, the family had learned that, if the storm was coming right at you, and you weren't sure of the sturdiness of your house, you should find a "safe room," or a first floor space with no windows, and no exterior walls. The farmhouse had only one of those: the downstairs bathroom.

Until the kids came to live with them, Jesse and Lavinia had been without indoor plumbing. It was a luxury that they'd planned on having at some point, but the timetable on the project got moved up considerably when they learned that Bo and Luke would be staying with them. The upstairs was only about two thirds the size of the first floor, consisting of a converted attic space that was now three fairly small rooms. The master bedroom, on the first floor, was single story, with only a roof overhead. There was a closet outside that bedroom that the couple planned to convert to a tiny bathroom with a commode, a sink and a stall shower. Neither Jesse nor Lavinia had taken many showers in their lives, so they considered the idea of having one in their house scandalously sumptuous. When they'd adopted the boys, however, they realized they'd do better to convert the smallest room upstairs into a bathroom as well, since it was nearly directly above the lavatory they planned to build for themselves. Within a year, the house that had never had a single flush toilet now had two. It was more than Jesse and Lavinia had ever hoped for.

But now, as two tall men squeezed into what had once been a closet and was currently a tiny bathroom, it seemed quite a bit less than luxurious. It felt downright crowded. Putting the oil lamp on the back of the commode and the radio in the shower stall, the boys sat cross legged in opposite corners and put the few items they'd brought in with them on either side of them on the floor. Their knees touched in the middle. If they hadn't been so scared they would have laughed at the absurdity. Instead, they looked each other in the eye and listened as the world that they knew blew into a million pieces.


	11. The Worst of it

_Hey all - neither rain, nor rain, nor more rain can keep me from my appointed posting. We needed rain. It can stop any time now! At least it's coming without 125 mph winds. I should be grateful._

_Thanks to those who have been reading all along, and special thanks to those who've been reviewing._

_I don't own the Dukes and I don't earn any money from what I write here. The experiences really are mine, though! Especially this chapter._

* * *

**Chapter 11 – The Worst of it**

The worst of the northern half of Hurricane David was north of Atlanta now, and as best as the boys could figure, Hazzard was in the heaviest part of the eye wall. While the large city to their south was now getting a break from the wind and rain, the Duke cousins were listening to what they were sure was the sound of the roof of their childhood home blowing right off the structure to which it ought to be permanently affixed.

"D'you suppose we're safe in here?" Bo asked, hoping for a simple affirmative response.

"I don't know whether we are or not, but it ain't like there's any place else we can go."

"We shoulda gone with Jesse and Daisy."

"Maybe so. But it's too late now." Luke's response was honest; no one could fault him for telling anything other than the truth.

There really wasn't much to say. Or do. On their way in here, along with the radio, oil lamp and a flashlight, Bo had grabbed a jar of peanut butter, and Luke had picked up the bottle of ginger ale. There was nothing distracting about either of these items, and the Duke cousins were in desperate need of distraction. They'd never heard a sound like the relentless whining wind, and the rumbling, cracking and bumping that accompanied it. Not being able to see the damage that was being caused to their home only made things worse. And then, as a complete and utter surprise to both boys, a distraction came. Over the rage of the storm, they could hear the phone ringing.

"You think we oughtta?" Bo asked.

"No, but I think I'm gonna. You stay put!" Luke added as Bo started to move around. "Don't need you out there with that ankle of yours!"

"I was just trying to get out of your way," the blonde mumbled under his breath.

Luke didn't have time to make apologies. He knew that he shouldn't leave the safety of this tiny room until the eye wall had passed. He also suddenly understood that, despite the fact that electrical wires were obviously down, somehow the phone lines were still working. It was probably four in the morning by now; the person on the other end of that ringing phone had to be Jesse. If there was ever a time that both boys needed their adoptive father, it was now.

The older cousin stumbled down the narrow hallway towards the dark living room, not sure what he'd find out there. Letting his ears guide him, he located the phone and answered, even as he dragged the apparatus back towards the relative safety of the bathroom.

"Luke, son," Jesse said, is his most calming tone. It was odd how the same man who could bark relentlessly at his kids when they disobeyed him could be so gentle when they were in real trouble. "I didn't think I'd reach you. Are you boys all right?"

By now the brunette had managed to bring the telephone into the bathroom with him. He'd never been so grateful for that long extension cord that he'd put on it several years ago, back when he was in high school. Jesse always complained that the cord was a tripping hazard, but the teenagers that had inhabited the house at the time had insisted that they needed at least some chance for privacy while they talked on the telephone to members of the opposite sex.

"We're both okay, Uncle Jesse. I ain't so sure about the house." Fear made Luke honest instead of careful. This put the Duke patriarch on his guard.

"Don't you be worrying none about the house, son. She'll stand up, and that's all you need to think about. If'n we lose some screen or even some boards, that don't matter none, as long as you boys are safe."

"Yes sir."

"This is the worst of it, Luke. You just hang in there another hour or so, and you'll get a rest."

"Yes sir."

Jesse didn't like the short answers he was getting, but he didn't know how long he'd have to talk to his boys before the phone lines went down, so he asked for Bo, and waited as Luke passed the phone to him.

"Uncle Jesse?"

"Bo, son, you doing all right?" Those boys really were like sons to the old man, but he rarely called them that. The fact that he had done so three times in the last minute spoke to how much he sought to keep them calm.

Bo swallowed, but his voice cracked anyway. He hated that it still did that. It seemed like something that everyone else had grown out of, but somehow Bo was destined to speak in the soprano range when he was upset, no matter how old he got.

"Yeah, me and Luke are looking after each other."

"That's good, Bo. This is the worst of it, right now. So I want the two of you to keep each other calm and safe, all right son?"

"Yeah, Jesse."

Just as the patriarch might have guessed, Bo and Luke were showing their fear in very different ways. Usually it was the younger boy who made a point of calling him 'sir' whereas Luke had a habit of forgetting the term of respect if the patriarch wasn't giving him direct orders. The fact that their behaviors were reversed tonight was all the indication Jesse needed in order to know that they were more than a little scared.

"Bo, I need you to do me a favor, okay? You and Luke go to the safest room in the house…"

"We're there."

"All right, you boys stay there, together, through the rest of this thing. Don't you lose sight of one another until the whole thing has passed, you hear me?"

"Uh huh."

"They're saying you'll get the eye in about an hour."

"I know. We got the radio on here, too."

Jesse went on as if Bo hadn't spoken. Even if the boys already knew the information he was about to give them, sometimes it was easier to pay attention to and grasp words when someone you loved was speaking them.

"And then they're saying that the second half of the storm won't be as bad, because it's weakening."

"Right."

"But even through the eye, even if the second part isn't as strong, I want you boys to stay safe for the whole thing, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir." There, that was better.

"I love you boys."

"We love you too, Uncle Jesse."

The old man wanted to give them something more than his love. When they were little and had been frightened, he would hold them close until their shaking little bodies relaxed. But there was no way to do that over the phone. He should have insisted that Bo and Luke accompany Daisy up here to Nashville, where the forecast was that they'd get some rain and wind, but nothing like his boys were experiencing right now. But Bo and Luke were young and strong, and he knew that so long as they stuck together, they would be all right.

"If the phone lines hold out, you call me during the eye, all right? We're all awake up here already, so don't you worry about that."

"Yes, sir." And with that, reluctant as they both were to give up their link to one another, uncle and nephew said goodbye.

For the first time since taking the handset from him, Bo looked at his older cousin. There hadn't really been room for the both of them and the telephone, too, at least not as Bo had casually placed it when taking it from Luke. His tired looking cousin was squatting there, back against the wall, and not appearing to be terribly comfortable.

"Sorry, Luke," the blonde muttered, quickly gathering the phone into his hands and shoving it into the shower stall.

"S'okay," Luke answered, gratefully finding his way to a sitting position. As soon as he was reasonably well seated, the older boy reached across and put a hand on Bo's shoulder. The uncharacteristically quiet blonde was still staring off to his right, where he'd just placed the phone. "Bo?" Luke called.

Just as the older cousin suspected, Bo's midnight eyes were moist when he finally turned enough so that Luke could see them. The brunette wished there was room for them to sit side by side so he could put an arm around Bo and let his cousin lean into his side. But there wasn't, so Luke did something their uncle had done when they were small, which would have been awkward for him to do to his fully-grown cousin under any other circumstances. He lifted his hand from the blonde's shoulder and cupped the boy's cheek, wiping the tears from under his eyes with his thumb.

"Easy, Bo. We're gonna be fine," Luke said gently, over the sound of the whining wind. He felt the younger boy nod under his hand, and he drew back, seeing that his cousin was going to pull himself together. He didn't need to embarrass Bo too much, for though the blonde was an affectionate boy, he didn't have any patience for being treated like a child.

Shaking his head, as if dispelling whatever dark thoughts were there, Bo cleared his throat and spoke.

"Luke? What was it like out there?"

"Out where?" The older boy became just slightly wary. He'd noticed a trend in Bo's behavior, and he wondered if it was repeating itself tonight. Often enough, when things went badly for the boys, and Bo needed a distraction, he'd ask Luke to talk about Vietnam. It wasn't the older boy's favorite subject, not by a long shot. But he usually gave in anyway, figuring that if it made Bo feel a little better, he could live with the fact that it made him feel a little worse. Luke braced himself.

"In the living room," Bo clarified, looking at Luke as if he had suddenly grown an extra head. "You know, you was just out there…"

Luke almost laughed at the absurdity of what he'd been assuming his cousin was about to ask.

"Oh, well, it was dark…"

"Yeah, but I mean, was there any damage or anything?"

Luke could understand his cousin's need to ask these questions. Cooped up in this little space the way they were, and hearing what sounded like the house coming down around them, there was an intense need to know just how bad things were out there. Trouble was, Luke hadn't been able to make anything out in the deep blackness.

"I couldn't see, Bo," he began, then paused for a moment. "Come to think of it though, when I was out there… It wasn't like there was any more wind out there than usually manages to blow through the cracks in the house when we have a bad storm."

"Yeah?" Bo said, his face brightening at the idea of what this meant.

"Yeah, so it seems like – whatever we're hearing out there, it ain't the whole house blowing down or anything," Luke answered with cautious optimism.

As the droning of the wind continued around them, the Duke boys took deep breaths and leaned back against their respective walls. The radio continued its crackling commentary as, knees touching, knuckles of work-worn hands grazing one another as they gripped those knees, two tired boys drifted into that place between wakefulness and sleep. Whatever was happening to their property right now, there was nothing they could do but wait.

* * *

_Author's note: Under the category of "truth is stranger than fiction" I had the very surprising experience of having been without power for quite a number of hours, being locked in my bathroom and thinking the world might just be coming to an end, only to hear my phone ring. Why the phone lines were up when the power lines were long down, I can't say (though I do have a couple of guesses). But that odd little situation is very real! And yes, I did leave my "safe room" to answer it. Don't try this at home!_


	12. Back Porches and Oak Trees

_Hey all - thanks to those who read and special thanks to those who stick with me on through and review along the way. I'm headed into deadlinesville again (ends of months are not kind to the likes of me), so I thought I'd get this out now in case I get bogged down later._

_I don't own the boys, only the situation into which I have placed them. _

* * *

**Chapter 12 – Back Porches and Oak Trees**

Somewhere in the hour between Jesse's call and the arrival of the eye of the hurricane, the radio station that the boys had been listening to went off the air. But the Duke cousins didn't need the aid of an electronic device to alert them to the fact that the storm had stopped.

"You hear that, Bo?" the older boy asked, slightly startling his sleepy cousin.

"What?" Dark blue eyes flew open. "Oh, yeah, it's quiet."

"Stay put, cuz. I'm gonna go take a look."

Bo grabbed his cousin's shoulder as he began to rise. "Not without me, you ain't."

"Bo!" Luke's voice had that annoyed quality that he used when he wanted to call his cousin an idiot without actually saying the word. But when his misty eyes met his cousin's deeper blue, he realized the unreasonableness of leaving Bo behind. Just like his older cousin, the blonde needed to see what his world looked like after such a vicious wind.

"All right, but you're gonna take it easy on that ankle. Be careful, now," he added, helping his cousin stand up in the tiny space they still shared.

The rest of the house was as dark as it had been all along, so Bo grabbed the oil lamp in his free hand while Luke picked up the flashlight, before they headed out into the main part of the house.

"Man, I didn't realize how hot that little bathroom had gotten." Bo shivered slightly in the cooler, but certainly not cold, air of the hallway.

"It's all that hot air coming out of you," Luke teased.

"You're the one who's always sweating all over the place," Bo shot back. This was a lifetime habit for the boys, distracting themselves from danger or sadness by insulting one another. Neither knew what they'd find out here, and they weren't sure that they wanted to know either. Upon their first inspection, however, aside from the phone that they'd left in the bathroom, the downstairs looked exactly as they'd left it when they headed for the relative sanctuary of that tiny room.

"You stay here, Bo. I'm gonna check out the upstairs. I know you wanna come," Luke continued, as he felt Bo's hand tighten on his shoulder. "But it'd take too long. I don't know how long we've got…"

"Okay," Bo answered reluctantly. It was true; the older boy could check things out much more quickly if he didn't have to help the blonde climb steps. Bo didn't want to slow things down during this respite, so he just listened as Luke's footsteps trailed away on up the stairs.

"Looks pretty good up here," Luke called, knowing that Bo was waiting for the information. Heading back towards the first floor, Luke was surprised not to find his cousin where he'd left him.

"Bo?" he called, though he knew where the blonde was by the glow of the lamp he still carried.

"Just checking to see if the phone's still working, cuz. And it ain't."

"It's amazing that it was working when Jesse called us," Luke replied, shaking his head and walking back towards the bathroom. "What, you ain't spent enough time in here tonight? Come on."

"Come on where, Luke?"

"Let's see whether we can see anything outside." Luke reached an arm out to support his cousin once again. The youngster could manage without him, there was no doubt. But Luke didn't want to take any chances of him tripping in the dark.

"Give me that," he added, taking the oil lamp from Bo's hand. The last thing they needed was for the younger boy to stumble on that sore ankle and drop the lamp, setting fire to the house. He gave Bo the flashlight instead.

They made their way back down the hallway to the nearest exterior door, which was in the back, on the opposite side of Jesse's bedroom from the bathroom they'd just left. Taking a deep breath, Bo twisted the lock and Luke opened it.

The first thing both boys realized was that they must have misjudged the amount of time they'd been sitting on that bathroom floor. While it wasn't exactly bright outside, there was light in the grayish-white skies; enough light to see pretty clearly. And what they could see made Bo suck in his breath while Luke's shoulders sagged in something resembling defeat.

"Geez," the older boy said, quietly.

"Luke, oh my God…"

"Come on." And this time Bo didn't have to ask Luke where they were going, because it was obvious that they needed to go back into the house.

The back porch had never been in the best of shape, somehow always needing a new board here to replace that rotten one, and new screen there to cover the latest hole worn through it. But it was a favorite place for the Duke cousins to sit, just as they had done last evening, when they were waiting for the storm.

Bo could remember spending hours out there at the age of about twelve, while Luke patiently taught him all the guitar chords that he knew. Bo's fingers appeared longer and more dexterous, but somehow he'd never picked up quite as much skill on the instrument as his older cousin. Maybe a year later, the blonde had gotten his first kiss on the porch, basking in the warmth of Betty Jean Carter's lips until Daisy had unexpectedly walked around to the back of the house, embarrassing the young couple and instantly ending their amorous embrace.

And this back porch was also the spot where he and Luke had performed the sloppy ritual of becoming blood brothers, a present from Bo to a just-turned-fifteen Luke on a birthday when the family had no money for material gifts. His oldest cousin always swore it was the best thing he'd ever gotten from anyone. Of course, when their uncle learned that the two boys had deliberately cut themselves to perform this little ceremony, Jesse had cleaned, disinfected and bandaged their wounds, then marched them both right out to the barn to perform a completely different kind of ritual.

And now that porch, that extension of the house the boys had grown up in, was mostly smithereens. The largest chunk was still semi-attached to the house, but probably would not bear weight. The roof, half-walls, posts and screen were everywhere and nowhere; pieces could be seen strewn across the yard and out to the tree line.

What was left of the tree line. But they didn't need to look too hard at that. It was enough, for now, to know that they'd have firewood for years, assuming that when the second half of the storm passed, they had a fireplace anymore.

Giving the back yard one more glance, Bo noticed that while the sky was not by any means clear, they were currently in a patch of lighter cloud cover. To the northwest was the very black retreat of the eye wall they had just experienced. No matter how far they looked to the southeast, they couldn't see the oncoming second half of the storm, so they knew they had a little time before it picked up where it had left off.

The cousins went back inside, closing and locking the door behind them. Luke made a mental note to brace Jesse's mattress in front of this portal after all. It suddenly seemed terribly fragile, and the boys would want that extra layer of protection if the wind, or some kind of a windborne projectile, forced it open.

Bo's hand went back through his hair as Luke led them towards the kitchen. "Cousin," he said.

"You want to stay here? You don't hafta look…" Luke's free hand was resting on his stomach again, making it clear to his cousin that he was taking this no better than the blonde was.

"No, I gotta know. I just… let's just take a minute first, okay?"

With a nod, the older boy agreed. In truth, he didn't feel like he was in a real hurry to see this anyway. He knew, however, that they didn't have forever before the storm started up again and they'd need to get back to safety. So he waited a minute, and no more.

Again, the boys worked together to unlock and open the door, this time wincing, as they were a little more prepared for what they might see out there. At first glance the front didn't seem so bad. At least the porch was still intact, and as they stepped gingerly upon it, it proved to be still solid, if leaf covered. It seemed that every leaf had blown off of the trees in the front of the farmhouse.

Bo's eyes were fixed on the oak trees in the front yard of the Duke farm.

_When they were little, there had been three trees, and each of the cousins had claimed one as "theirs." At the time, Daisy and Bo had both been quite a bit smaller than their oldest cousin, so they had chosen the trees with lower branches that were easier to climb._

_A few years later, Bo's tree had fallen victim to the sheriff. While he hadn't always been crooked, there had never been a time that Rosco could drive well. The year Bo turned ten, the sheriff had been chasing a local boy, just out of high school, that had taken a summer "job" running moonshine for some of the older Hazzardites who no longer wanted to be involved in the delivery end of the business. Seeking refuge on private property, the youngster had cruised off of Old Mill Road and across the front of the Duke's farmyard, disappearing into the woods behind the house. A less nimble Sheriff Coltrane had continued the chase into the yard, but crashed directly into Bo's oak. The lawman and the tree were both the worse for wear; Jesse had taken the former to the hospital, and the latter had been felled within the week. And surprising a lot of his moonshine running peers, Jesse had found the boy that had led the chase, then threatened him with his squirrel gun. Seeking refuge from the law on the Dukes' farm was acceptable, but not at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour, not when Jesse had children on his property that could get hurt._

_Bo had mourned the loss of "his" tree, but not for long. Luke had told Bo that he was too big for that other tree now anyway, and showed him that he was ready to take over the oak that had been Luke's. With a slight boost, the younger boy was scampering up the lower branches, calling for Luke to join him. From that point on, that tree was Bo's, and Luke, who was far more busy with football and increased farm chores, shared it with his younger cousin when he had the time. As the boys grew, it became a refuge for the blonde, especially when Luke had been in the Marines. Bo spent a lot time during his teenaged years, sitting in his tree, trying desperately to feel close to the cousin that was thousands of miles away._

Bo stared at "his" tree, the one the boys had shared, which was split right down the middle, the southwestern half of it lying on the ground, bleeding sap.

"Aw, Luke…"

"Look at the barn, Bo." The older boy could be very sentimental, Bo knew. But right now there was a practical problem to be solved, and the blonde never questioned that Luke's attention would be drawn there first.

Although the structure was certainly recognizable as the Dukes' main barn, its normally rectangular shape resembled more of a parallelogram at the moment. And the roof was not holding up well either. The tin exterior had been bent somewhat upward at one corner, and the plywood underneath had begun to lift and split away from the walls.

The boys were grateful that the livestock was not in there, but their livelihood was. All the equipment that they had to run the farm, both electronic and mechanical, was in that barn. And so were Daisy's car and Jesse's old runner, Tilly.

"Bo," Luke began, light eyes staring into dark, willing his cousin to listen to him, not fight him on this. "I'm gonna see what I can do to stabilize that thing."

"No! Luke, it might not be safe… you could get hurt." Looking across the farmyard, however, they both knew that this was unlikely. The structure was listing, but nowhere near far enough to fall, at least not right now. But with the other half of the storm still to come, all bets were off for the condition of the thing in a few hours. Unless Luke could put some temporary braces out there.

"I'll be all right. You go back inside…"

"No way, Luke! If you're goin' I'm gonna help you."

Forcing himself to project calm through his eyes and body language, Luke placed gentle hands on his cousin's shoulders.

"Please, Bo, you can help me best by not coming with me. Look," he added, using his head to gesture to the standing water and mud that covered the farmyard. "It ain't gonna be smooth walking, cousin. An' I can move faster if I ain't worrying about you."

Bo wanted to tell his cousin not to worry about him, that he was a man who could handle himself. But he knew that his age and size had nothing to do with the way Luke watched over him. The brunette would worry about him until they were both older than Uncle Jesse.

Worrying was what was giving Luke the stomach ache he was trying to hide, and Bo knew it. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't lean on Luke, and in this case, that meant letting Luke go out and work alone.

Bo's head dropped, and he nodded. "Okay, go ahead. But I ain't goin' inside. I'm gonna stay right here and watch the skies. You listen for my call, because the minute I see the dark clouds comin'…"

"Thank you, Bo," Luke said, giving the anxious boy's shoulders a squeeze before letting go and turning to slip and slide his way across the wet, leaf-littered farmyard. Bo sat on the top step of the still intact porch, watching his cousin slog through knee-deep water and sticky mud, and almost tripping over the unseen debris beneath. It was only after watching Luke force open the barn doors and disappear inside that Bo remembered Jesse's admonishment not to let each other out of their sight until the whole thing was over. Turning his eyes upward, Bo alternated between watching for trouble and asking for divine assistance.


	13. Second Blast

_Hey! This is where the boys and I part ways. Oh, not really. I haven't been able to give them up, despite my best efforts. No, what I mean is that, up until now, much of what I have done to the boys was something I had experienced in some form or other. But - I've never had a barn. So from here on, the boys are in their own universe._

_Thanks to those who have been sticking with me so far!_

_I don't own the boys or their home. So why am I doing so much damage to it all? Good question. Not for pay, that much is for sure!_

* * *

**Chapter 13 – Second Blast**

Luke was relieved to find the inside of the barn relatively dry and secure. It had been built on the highest ground in the farmyard for just this reason, to keep the livestock high and dry in bad weather. The oldest Duke cousin was glad to see it had served its purpose, if not for the livestock, then for the Dukes' livelihood, for it housed all of the farm equipment. From the inside, the barn seemed to be in pretty good shape, but Luke was keenly aware that it didn't look as sturdy from the outside. Right now he was wishing that he and Bo had done more than level the remnants of the old barn on the north end of the property. If only they'd scavenged some of the boards and brought them here, he could be using them now to prop the leaning side of the structure. Instead, he was wasting precious minutes looking for something as long and strong as those planks would have been.

Finding some fence posts and a couple of old iron rods that had been used to shore up the hound pen back when they'd kept dogs, Luke headed back out into the somewhat dangerous terrain right around the barn. He was very glad he'd made his younger cousin stay behind, considering how tricky the footing was out here, even if you weren't nursing a sprained ankle. With quick determination, the brunette set to affixing braces to the outer wall of the family barn.

* * *

Bo didn't know exactly why he was so antsy. Certainly he and Luke had already been through more of a weather event than he'd ever experienced in his life, and he knew it wasn't yet over. But they seemed to have survived the worst of it. 

And of course, he was worried about his cousin, who was probably further from the safety of the house than he should be. But watching the skies, Bo didn't see the black clouds that they'd witnessed the night before, not yet. And since they'd gotten ample indication that the storm was approaching last night, he anticipated that they'd get as much warning this morning.

He had no idea what time it was, and he couldn't guess how long it would be before this storm was over. But beyond that, if the Dukes' farmyard was any indication, the entire road system in and around Hazzard was likely to be too wet and muddy for travel. He wondered how long it would be before he saw anyone other than Luke again.

Daydreaming of the faces of the other members of his family, Bo was alarmed at how suddenly the storm crashed back down on them.

* * *

Luke had done everything he could, using the makeshift props he'd found. Now he was concerned about that lifting roof on the northeast corner of the barn. He didn't have any plywood to patch it with, so it wasn't like he could really repair it. But maybe he could tack that corner down. Heading back into the barn, the brunette grabbed the ladder that he'd stored back in here yesterday afternoon, which seemed like months ago now. Dragging it around the structure, he looked for the best way to approach this task. He didn't want to put weight on either the eastern or western walls, because he wasn't sure how that would affect the work he'd just done to stabilize the thing. So he'd have to place the ladder on the north side and lean himself over to that corner. It wouldn't be easy, but the oldest Duke cousin had performed vastly more difficult tricks. Like that time he'd taken the moonshine out of Jesse's trunk while his uncle was racing at 80 miles per hour. 

Placing the ladder into the knee deep water on the north side of the barn, and sinking it as deeply into the mud as he could to keep it from sliding out from under him, Luke began to climb.

* * *

Bo wondered whether he had drifted off to sleep or something, the way the second half of the storm snuck up on him. But he was reasonably sure that he had stayed conscious throughout. Either way, it didn't matter. The wind was suddenly gusting at frightening speeds, and the skies were darkening before his very eyes. 

"Luke! Luke!" he called, but he assumed he didn't have to. There was no way the other boy could be missing the signs that the storm was making its return. He expected Luke to sprint back up to the front of the house within seconds. But he couldn't see his cousin.

A few remarkably short moments later, it became obvious to the blonde that he wouldn't be able to see Luke, even if he was running towards the house. The rain had begun again in sideways blowing torrents, and Bo couldn't see much of anything except the basic shape of the barn, not a hundred yards away.

Without thinking, Bo jumped off the porch and began to run towards the barn. Much as his older cousin had discovered on his journey across the yard, Bo learned just how dangerous a combination water, mud and fallen leaves could be. He managed to keep his feet under him until he was very close to the doors of the barn, but at that point he stepped on unseen storm debris with his bad foot and went down.

* * *

Luke was at the top of the ladder, reaching across to put a few new eight penny nails into the seam where the barn's roof met the top of the eastern wall, when he felt a sudden wind gust. As much as he'd wanted to complete this little task, the oldest Duke cousin didn't wait for a second blast. In the air was not where he wanted to be when this thing started up again. Shinnying down as quickly as he could, Luke was on the ground within a minute of feeling the wind. He pulled the ladder hard up out of the mud and began to run around the barn towards the open door at the front. Before he even got close, the windblown rain was blinding him. Pushing against the gusts, closer to staggering than running, the oldest cousin considered dropping the ladder, which hindered him. But it wasn't like the Dukes could afford to lose any more than they already had in this storm, so he kept hold of the long tool, even as the wind tried to tear it from his hands. 

He held onto it until he looked up and squinted through the rain to see something moving towards him. A glimpse yellow fluffiness made it pretty clear that the object was Bo, and just as Luke caught sight of him, his cousin slipped downward.

A ladder is a useless gadget when someone you care about is in danger, so Luke dropped the hindrance and made his way to where he'd last seen Bo, fighting wind and water all the way. Bending low into the temporary lake that the farmyard had become, and reaching out blindly, he caught hold of something warm, and didn't let go. Pulling his cousin up out of the mud and water, Luke propelled them towards the open doors at the front of the barn. The house was too far away to consider running for, now.

Stumbling into the barn, an exhausted Luke was relieved to recognize that Bo was conscious, if in pain. Sitting his grimacing cousin down in the safest place he could spot quickly, Luke fought his way back to the barn doors and pulled at each one until the wind caught it and helped him swing it closed. Dropping the wooden latch into place, the older cousin hoped they were safe for now.

Breathing hard, sopping wet boys sat side by side on the floor of the barn, unable to speak. Luke found his voice first.

"Bo! What were you doing out there? I told you," Luke panted. "I told you to stay by the house."

"I know it, but you was supposed to come back in before the eye passed. An' I called but…"

Luke lifted a hand to call a truce. Neither of them had the energy to argue at the moment.

"Let me see that ankle," he said, realizing that there were more important things to worry about now than whether his cousin had listened to him, or for that matter, whether he had listened to his cousin.

"It's okay, Luke," Bo said, trying to stave off Luke's worry while simultaneously keeping the older boy from pulling his waterlogged boot off his foot. That had hurt enough yesterday, and he suspected it would be worse today.

Ignoring his cousin's words, Luke went for his foot anyway, and Bo didn't resist. There was no way he could keep his older cousin from seeing what he needed to see, and struggling would hurt worse than giving in. Bo sucked in a hard breath, while Luke fought with his slippery footwear.

"Easy, Bo." And once again Luke set to testing Bo's pain threshold by putting pressure on different parts of his foot, then turning it this way and that. "Well, it ain't broke, but it certainly ain't better than it was yesterday."

"I'm sorry, Luke."

"Naw, it ain't your fault, cuz. I should have been satisfied with bracing this thing. I didn't need to go after the roof. And if I hadn't, I would have been back to you before the end of the eye."

"You was on the roof when the wind started?"

"Well, close enough. Yeah, I shouldn'ta been there, that's for sure. The eye ended awful sudden. I thought we'd get more warning…"

"Me, too. I was watchin' the skies, Luke. I don't know how I missed it…"

"You didn't miss nothin'. It's like Uncle Jesse tried to warn us. We shoulda stayed put until the whole thing was over. But I had to come out here and try fixin' the barn, and now we're stuck out here," Luke berated himself.

For the first time, the boys assessed their situation. They were sitting on the loose hay on the floor of a much less stable structure than the old farmhouse. They had no light, electric or otherwise. Luke had extinguished the oil lamp and left it on the porch with Bo, next to the flashlight that the blonde had been carrying. The matches in his pocket would be useless now, too wet to light another oil lamp, even if they could manage to find one in here. But the absence of artificial light didn't leave them in the dark, exactly, because there were gaps between some of the planks in the barn. This was not due to storm damage, but more just a function of the fact that this was a home to livestock, not humans. Gaps opened as boards warped, and because its occupants didn't complain much, the barn wasn't fixed as quickly or as often as the house. But those gaps were letting way too much wind into the structure with the boys. And they could see a different corner of the roof, opposite from where Luke hadn't had time to make his repair, lifting slightly from the walls. When the wind was at its strongest, the plywood pulled up enough that they could actually see the storm out there. They would have been able to feel some rain falling in on them too, if they hadn't already been soaked right through.

Bo began to shake. Luke knew it was one of three things: fear, the fact that the wind on their wet bodies was chilling, or shock. He hoped it was a combination of the first two, as he wrapped his arms around his trembling cousin.

"Easy, Bo," he cooed, calmly as he could. "Steady now…"

When his only response was the continued shaking of his youngest cousin's body, Luke looked around again, and suddenly realized something.

"Cousin, can you move?" A slight nod. "Okay, we're gonna get up and get into Tilly there, all right?" Again, a nod. Luke didn't know whether the car was more or less safe than the openness of the barn, but he knew it would be a lot more airtight and he'd have half a chance of getting Bo warm. "On three, okay?" One more nod.

Luke counted to three and hauled himself and his heavy cousin upward. Bo stumbled slightly on the sore ankle, but managed to work with Luke to cross the aisle of the barn and open the door to Jesse's big, old, black Ford. The boys had experienced a lot in that car, not all of it good. But just like their Uncle Jesse, the vehicle had protected them from harm before, and Luke hoped it would continue that trend now. Giving Bo a shove into the back seat, Luke told him to stay put for a moment while he searched the trunk for something. Not finding what he wanted there, he moved on to the trunk of Daisy's car. Finally, he was back, sliding in beside his shaking cousin with a blanket. He wrapped it around them both, and held his cold cousin. By now the brunette was shivering, too.

They huddled that way for a few minutes, then Luke had one last idea.

"Bo?"

"Uh huh," his cousin stammered between chattering teeth.

"Let's get up front."

"Aw, Luke, I don't wanna move…" Well, his cousin wasn't in shock. He sounded just like his own miserable self when he was hurt and didn't want to be disturbed.

"Come on, cuz, you'll see…"

Bo wanted nothing more than to stay put, but he trusted his cousin implicitly, and if Luke thought there was something to be gained by moving to the front seat of the car, he'd find the strength to get up there. Once again freezing in the windy barn, the boys moved as quickly as they could to the front, where they huddled together again. Reaching out his right hand, Luke was grateful to find his uncle's key in the ignition. He was even happier when the car cranked. Turning up the heat to full blast, Luke checked the gas gauge. They didn't have a ton, but it was probably enough to get them warm and dry, and that was all he needed for now. And, thanks to the fact that air was circulating through the barn at a somewhat alarming rate, they didn't have to worry about asphyxiation. They weren't exactly safe, but the Duke boys were doing the best they could, considering the stress they were under.

As they warmed enough to stop shaking, Bo fell asleep in Luke's arms. The older cousin kept a vigil in case of any unexpected danger, but he prayed silently that the greatest risk had passed. As he watched the rise and fall of the lightweight objects within the barn, bits of straw, a drop cloth, a scrap of paper fluttering about, Luke's school lessons came back to him with an abrupt vengeance. The wind was putting pressure on the opposite side of the barn now; as the storm had progressed, leaving Hazzard in the southern half, the winds had switched direction, typical in a hurricane. Luke suddenly realized he'd braced the wrong side of the structure. He closed his eyes against the thought, hoping that the winds were weaker on the back end of the storm, as Jesse had told Bo they would be.

Finally, when he deemed the two of them dry enough, he turned the car off, and despite himself, the older Duke cousin fell into much needed sleep.


	14. Piggyback

_Hey! Thanks for sticking with me through this one, and double thanks to those who review._

_I don't own the Dukes, and I am not earning anything by borrowing them for a little while._

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**Chapter 14 – Piggyback**

There were two beats and they were not synchronized. This was what woke Bo from his fitful sleep. Under his ear, his cousin's heart beat steadily, and it was as relaxing as a lullaby. But down his own body, somewhere in the general vicinity of his left foot, there was an equally insistent throbbing, and this was not so soothing. In fact, it was downright painful.

Carefully lifting his head from Luke's chest, not wanting to wake his cousin, Bo squinted his eyes open, trying to remember exactly how it had come to pass that Luke was holding him in the first place. The boys were close, and this was not the first time he'd slept in Luke's arms, but it wasn't exactly a common occurrence anymore, either. They weren't children.

Except, suddenly Bo did feel sort of like a small child, as the events of the past 24 hours came back to him. They'd been through a terrifying night, sitting in the cramped quarters of the downstairs bathroom. Then they'd had an even scarier morning, caught in the second half of the storm as the eye had seemed to suddenly collapse in on them. And in between, they had gotten a look at their homestead and seen the damage. So much damage. Bo closed his eyes tightly at the memory of the back porch and the oak in the front yard. And then, carefully, he opened them again, forcing himself to look at the world outside of Tilly's windshield.

Though there seemed to be more light than there should have been coming through some spaces between the boards of the barn walls, and there was definitely what would have to be called a sunbeam piercing the northeastern corner of the structure, it seemed that the barn had stood through the second half of the storm. And the storm must be over, for there was no sound of wind, and obviously some sun had managed to cut through the clouds. This much was good news, and it was all that the youngest Duke cousin would be able to tell from where he sat.

Looking at the face of his sleeping cousin, Bo considered letting the older boy nap a while longer. But Luke would want to know that the storm was done, would need, every bit as much as Bo did, to know just exactly what the world outside of this safe hunk of steel looked like. The lines around the older boy's eyes were tight, indicating that he wasn't exactly sleeping peacefully, anyway.

"Luke?" Bo called, using his left elbow to nudge the older boy awake.

This was apparently more than was necessary, considering that the brunette came to immediate attention, bright blue eyes startled and mouth already working.

"What?"

"Easy, Lukas," Bo said, reaching across with his right arm to place a firm hand on his cousin's shoulder. Ever since the night that Bo had seen his cousin startle fully awake, suddenly a sergeant again, shouting orders to troops that weren't there, the younger boy had been a little more vigilant when he aroused Luke.

But Luke wasn't worried about war, not today. He knew fully well where they were and what they'd been through. He was just surprised to have fallen asleep at all.

"I'm up, I'm up," he muttered. "How's your ankle?" It was Luke's first coherent thought.

"Not great, but listen."

Luke expected there to be more to that sentence. "Listen, what?"

"Listen to the silence. Look," the blonde added, pointing to the spot above them where sunlight was entering the barn. "I think it's really over."

"I think you're right," Luke agreed, and Bo saw some of the tension visibly melt from his cousin's shoulders. But it was back in an instant. "Wonder how bad it is?"

"Don't know, but I guess we're gonna have to go out there to see…"

"Nuh-uh, Bo, not 'til you let me see that ankle."

The blonde nodded. He knew this part was coming. And in truth, it was best that Luke took care of him as best he could before they moved. Bo had learned the hard way that he needed to pay better attention to his physical limitations when he was injured.

Both boys were stiff from the way they'd been sitting, but Bo found moving harder than Luke did. His cousin slid away from him, into the far side of the driver's seat, making room for Bo to lift his sore left ankle into Luke's lap. When he did so, and the older boy pulled off his sock and pushed up his pants cuff, both boys sucked in a quick breath at the discoloration and swelling that had occurred.

"I shoulda made you put this up," Luke berated himself. "We didn't have no ice, but I shoulda made you…"

"Cousin, you had bigger worries. Like keeping us safe. And warm."

"I guess," Luke said, using one hand to gently probe Bo's ankle for any serious damage, while the other slipped across his stomach in a subconscious attempt to ease the discomfort there.

"Luke, it ain't as bad as it looks." But the blonde's wince provided Luke with more accurate information than his words. "And it ain't your fault. You told me to stay put."

"All right, ain't no point in arguin' which of us is dumber. I think we both get the Enos Strate award for the stupids."

Bo snickered, an act that warmed Luke's heart just slightly. His cousin had a unique way of bringing him out of the darkness of his own mind with the simplest of gestures.

"All right, you stay put," Luke ordered, as he opened the driver's side door and slid out, heading for the barn doors.

Opening his own door, Bo complained, "Nuh-uh, Luke, I want to see, too."

"Bo, you will, in a second." Leave it to his cousin to treat scanning the property for damage as if it was peeking at Christmas presents. "I ain't goin' nowheres. I just need to see what kind of obstacles there might be between here and the house." _And see whether the house is still there,_ he thought, but did not say.

As he swung the wide barn door open, Luke knew for sure that the storm had passed. The skies were not exactly clear, but they were much brighter than they had been, even during the eye. The sun was managing its way around some of the thinner cloud cover, and revealed to him a yard that looked very much like it had when he'd crossed it this morning. Thigh deep standing water and mud, with slippery leaves thrown in to make it just that much more hazardous. But he'd manage.

Picking Bo's stray boot up off the barn floor and walking back to the passenger side of the car, he smirked. "All aboard," he called, sounding vaguely like his childhood self.

"You don't mean," Bo raised an eyebrow.

"You bet I do. You ain't putting any weight on that foot until it looks a heck of a lot better than it does right now." Luke turned a presented Bo with his back, arms out. Standing on his good foot and wrapping his arms around Luke's neck and shoulders, Bo did his best to hop onto his shorter cousin's back. With a good pull and a lot of shuffling, Luke wrestled his cousin into a reasonably comfortable position and carried him toward the door of the barn.

"No more pie for you," he complained.

Bo laughed. It must have been a good ten years since the last time Luke had carried him piggyback.

Luke sloshed carefully through the murky water. He knew something had tripped his cousin this morning, and that same something, along with any number of other somethings, was just as invisible now as it had been then. And the last thing either of them needed was for him to stumble and fall with his heavy cousin on his back.

"Don't look no worse," Bo said, cautiously optimistic.

"Guess not," Luke grunted. The distance between the barn and the house had never seemed so far.

Bo was about to say something sarcastic about how Luke's strength was fading in his old age, but stopped as the two of them came to a point where they could see the front door of the farmhouse.

"Aw, dang it!"

"Easy, Bo, that's my ear you're shouting in."

"But Luke…"

"I see it."

Because the boys had been on the outside of this door when the storm started up again, they had not thrown the bolt lock, which meant that the only thing holding it closed was the tongue and groove latch. The very same tongue and groove latch that had been pretty much worn out through the slamming ways of three kids over more than twenty years. One good gust had blown it open, and from the mess that the boys were starting to see as Luke got them closer, it looked like that gust had come pretty early in the second half of the storm.

"I shoulda stayed inside," Bo lamented.

"We both shoulda stayed inside, cousin. Come on; let's see how bad it is." Of course, Bo didn't have a choice except to go where Luke led.

Stumbling his way up the steps to the front porch, Luke could see that an inch or two of water coated the kitchen linoleum. The chairs and table were somewhat askew, but unbroken. Some of the smaller items, like the sugar bowl and cream dish, had been blown off of their perches, their shattered pieces floating in the puddle of a kitchen.

Luke sighed. He was wet again, or at least his bottom half was. And the house had more water in it than he'd ever wanted to see. It was hard to believe that only a few days ago they'd been complaining of drought. Now he thought he'd go crazy if he saw even one more drop. But he had to admit, the kitchen could have been in much worse shape than it was.

"Come on, let's find a dry place to put you," Luke muttered, heading for the living room, with his cousin still clinging to his back. Some of the water had made it to the floorboards in this room as well, and they were likely to show the damage for a long time to come. But at least it hadn't quite reached the throw rugs or the furniture, not yet. The brunette got his injured cousin settled on the couch.

"I'll go see if there's any ice left in the ice box," he said, not meeting his cousin's eyes. The youngster was already struggling with the changes to their house and land. He didn't need to see how badly the damage was affecting Luke, too.

What was left of the ice was small and very wet. The house had been without electricity for maybe eighteen hours now, by Luke's reckoning. They hadn't opened the refrigerator since losing power, so the freezer was still cool, but it was obviously above freezing in there now. Everything that was inside would have to be disposed of.

"Here." Luke offered his cousin a wet dishcloth with the remnants of the ice in it. "For all the good it'll do, put this on there for now. I'm gonna go get something to wrap your ankle with."

Bo nodded miserably as Luke headed for the Jesse's bathroom, knowing there should be an ace bandage in there.

"Geez," he heard Luke say, quietly, but not quietly enough.

"What, Luke?"

Luke's eyes betrayed some shock and a lot of sadness as he came back to where Bo was sitting.

"What?" the blonde asked again.

"Put the ice down for a second. You're gonna want to see this anyways, might as well get it over with."

"You're scaring me, Lukas," Bo complained as Luke helped him to a standing position.

"Lean on me, Bo, and hop. I don't want you puttin' that foot down." The younger boy just nodded, swallowing hard. If Luke wouldn't tell him, had to show him instead, it must be bad.

As they got into the hallway that led past the back door, then Jesse's bedroom, and finally into the tiny downstairs bath, Bo could already see glass littering the floor.

"Don't you put that bare foot down, Bo," Luke reminded him. Hopping to the door of Jesse's room, Bo could finally see what they were dealing with. One of the trees in the back of the house had fallen, landing in Jesse's room. As far as the boys could tell at first glance, it had damaged that room alone, but the room was devastated. As were the cousins.

"Seen enough?" Luke asked.

A head bob was all Bo was up to at the moment.

Luke led his younger cousin back to the couch and ordered him to put the ice on his ankle once again. He wasn't sure whether the upstairs of the house was safe or not, so he headed back down that same hallway, and managed to get himself past the destruction and into the bathroom. While that room was still intact, Luke was suddenly grateful that they'd camped out in the barn for the second half of the storm. That tree had come too close to where he and his cousin had been sitting only hours before. Finding what he'd come for, Luke unwound the ace bandage as he walked back to his cousin. Sitting next to the younger boy, he gently said, "Let's see that foot, Bo."

As Luke wrapped the ankle, he could feel his cousin shaking, and he knew the pain wasn't physical. Finally pinning the bandage, Luke reached across and pulled his miserable cousin into his arms. Two heartbroken young men held onto the only thing they knew they still had in the world: each other.


	15. Another Drop of Water

_Hey all! Thanks for reading, and special thanks to the reviewers!_

_Ah, if only I owned those boys, the fun we'd have! But I don't, so I have to resort to writing about them, an activity that does not lead to me earning even a dime._

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**Chapter 15 – Another Drop of Water**

"You ain't eatin' much, Luke."

"I ain't much hungry," the brunette responded, looking away from his cousin.

"You didn't hardly eat nothin' yesterday, and neither of us has had anything today. You been workin' hard. You gotta eat," Bo worried, quietly.

"Quit naggin' at me, Bo," Luke snapped, his voice a warning. His head was full of dark thoughts, and his stomach was full of pain. He didn't want much food and he didn't need his younger cousin bothering him about it.

They'd done their best to get started on cleaning up. Luke had pushed as much of the water and leaves back out the front door as he could, and the two of them had dry mopped the living room and kitchen, Luke on his feet, and Bo on all fours. It hadn't exactly been a pretty technique, but it had been remarkably successful. As much as he wanted Bo to rest, Luke was sure there was no way he could do everything that needed to be done without help. Besides, Bo was pretty agile on one foot, and Luke knew that outside help wouldn't be here any time soon. Judging from the flooding of their own yard, the boys had estimated that the roads wouldn't be passable for a few days, especially not in the two low riding vehicles they had at their disposal.

"I'll be back in a little while, Bo."

"What do you mean you'll be back? Where are you goin'?"

It took all of Luke's patience not to yell at his cousin right now. The way Bo was responding made perfect sense. The last time Luke had gone off without him, just hours ago, they'd both wound up being lucky to find shelter from the dangerous storm. But the oldest Duke cousin was tired and more than that, he was angry. He should have taken better care of his cousin and the house. Neither one was in very good shape right now. Luke's tolerance for dealing with his cousin's emotions on top of his own was not high at the moment.

"I gotta take a look at Jesse's room from the outside, see the extent of the damage. We gotta know whether it's safe to go upstairs or not. I also gotta try to get a look at the roof."

"Okay," Bo muttered, feeling his cousin's dark mood as if it were his own. Luke was hard to deal with when he was hurting. "Be careful, though."

Luke's eyes softened as they finally met his cousin's concerned glance. This whole situation was as difficult for Bo as it was for him. "I will."

Stepping out onto the front porch again, Luke tested its solidity. It seemed as though this little extension of the house had escaped any serious harm, so he stepped on down to the ground, and splashed his way through the standing water once again. Looking up, he could see that yet another remnant band of the outer reaches of the storm would be here soon. They'd experienced one about an hour ago as well. They didn't last long, at least not in comparison to the hurricane itself, but they certainly weren't welcome on this already drenched land.

Making his way around the back, Luke got his first good look at the situation. It wasn't as bad from the outside as it looked from the inside, though there was no question that their uncle's bedroom was uninhabitable. It hadn't been the entire tree that had landed on the low roof; it was just one of the largest branches. And as he assessed the weight of the thing, Luke determined that had it not been for the force of the wind and the age of the part of the roof the limb had struck, they would probably be dealing with water damage and not destruction. But the wind had been powerful and the roof old, so there was no point in thinking about "if onlys," Luke's disciplined mind reminded him.

In their favor, it appeared to Luke that there was probably not any structural damage to the main section the house, despite the loss of the back porch and the destruction of Jesse's room. Both of these spaces had been additions to the structure, probably built during Jesse's own childhood, when there'd been a lot more kids crowded into the farmhouse. And the loss of these parts of the residence didn't affect any of the weight bearing beams on the main part of the building.

In fact, if there was anything in Jesse's room that was salvageable, Luke thought he'd be able to protect it, but he'd have to work quickly, since he didn't have a ton of light left in the day. As he headed for the crooked barn, his awareness of the rapidly passing afternoon brought him up short for a moment. They'd lost their oil lamp and flashlight in the second half of the storm, having left them on the porch during the eye. The Dukes had an older generator, and they'd bought the gas to run it, but it had been in the barn during the storm, and Luke hadn't yet had time to check on the equipment in there, to make sure it was all in safe working condition. He wouldn't be firing up the generator tonight, and it might be a couple of days before he did.

He'd gone into the barn for a saw and an axe, but came out with another oil lamp instead. There were times when he had to be grateful for Jesse's insistence on tradition. Though the family had been using electricity since the white haired man was young, he still stored away a few oil lamps from his early childhood. Rummaging around in Daisy's car, Luke also found the flashlight that the men in her family insisted she keep in there in case of emergencies. Taking both of these items and depositing them on the front porch, Luke then returned to his original task. Grabbing the tools and finding the tarp that the boys used when camping, Luke was also surprised to discover the ladder laying exactly where he's dropped it when going after his fallen cousin this morning. Clutching all these items awkwardly in his arms, the boy slogged his way back towards the remains of Jesse's bedroom.

The saw was intended to be used by two men, and normally he and Bo could set a pretty good rhythm with the thing. Working it alone was awkward and the older Duke boy made slow progress. When he'd finally forced his way through the worst of the wood, he went after the more manageable pieces with the axe. It was at this time that the sky saw fit to open up, as the last rain band from Hurricane David swung over Hazzard.

"Dang it!" Luke growled in frustration, but he didn't waver, just redoubled his efforts.

* * *

Bo was doing his best to clean the glass from the hallway without hurting himself. He wished, more than anything, that he could be out there, helping Luke. But there was plenty to do inside, as well, and he'd make the best use of himself that he could. Having cleared a safe path to the bathroom, Bo limped his way in there, next. Looking around the tiny space that he and Luke had shared for the first part of the storm, Bo wondered what it would have been like to be in here when the tree landed in the room next door. He and his cousin probably would not have been hurt by the tree, but the sound and feel of the impact would have been terrifying in this tiny echo chamber of a room. He suspected that they wouldn't have stayed put, and that if they'd been in here, instead of huddled together in Tilly, they would probably have put themselves into greater danger. 

They'd left behind the phone, radio, peanut butter and ginger ale, and all four stood exactly as they'd left them. As he retrieved the telephone from the shower stall, where it had thankfully been protected from the moisture that seemed to have invaded the rest of the house, he lifted the handset and put it to his ear. The silence that he got was not a surprise. He'd seen that the phone wires were no longer attached to the outside of the house. It was just wishful thinking, that somehow he and Luke would be able to reach Jesse tonight. His cousin probably needed to talk to their uncle more than he did, so Jesse could tell him that none of this was Luke's fault. Bo knew it, and he'd try to tell his cousin so, but he also knew that Luke wouldn't listen to him.

Hobbling his way back towards the kitchen, the blonde placed Luke's ginger ale on the kitchen table, in hopes that his stubborn cousin would at least drink that, even if he wouldn't eat much. Putting the peanut butter on the counter, Bo began to empty the spoiling food from the refrigerator. He was half inside the appliance when he heard the rain begin, followed by Luke's outraged complaint. Banging the back of his head as he tried to come out quickly, the blonde muttered his own, echoing protest.

"Dang it!"

He'd done what he could here. The food would rot and begin to smell very soon, without the livestock here to eat it for them. Bo dragged the bag he'd filled with the contents of the refrigerator out onto the front porch, where he listened to his cousin working. Obviously his shouted words had been in anger, not pain.

Not long after, a once again soaked Luke came sprinting through the rain, to find his cousin sitting on the floor of the porch, in the dry little space that the overhang protected. At least the rain was falling in normal vertical patterns now.

"Luke? You all right? I heard you out there…"

"I swear Bo, I am tired of water. I never seem to get dry before I'm wet again. And the house… I was trying to protect Jesse's room from gettin' any wetter, but the rain came too fast. If I never see another drop of water…"

Luke finally stopped his rant and took a closer look at the boy in front of him. Squatting down to Bo's level, Luke changed his tone.

"What about you, cousin, you all right?"

Luke might never have wanted to see another drop of water, but the thousands that had been soaking him over the last two days meant nothing compared to the way the two that were streaking his cousin's cheeks made him feel.

"Did you fall? You hurt yourself again?"

Bo shook his head and quickly swiped at his cheeks. He never wanted to worry Luke. How come he always managed to do the one thing he didn't want to?

"Naw, I was just emptying out the refrigerator," he gestured towards the bag he'd dragged out here, while his sopping cousin twisted around and sat down next to him. "And I was wondering what to do with it, seeing as Sadie the goat ain't here to eat it."

Luke nodded. He knew there had to be more to this story. Not knowing what to do with garbage had never upset Bo like this before.

"And then I started thinkin', how long 'til we can get back up to the caves and take care of the livestock? We only left 'em with a couple of days of food. And Maudine, we need her to plow, you know? Then I started wonderin', what about the crops? They couldn't have survived, Luke…"

In truth, Luke had been working as hard as he could not to think about those things, but they had crept into the back of his mind as well. The family couldn't afford to lose crops, even when they were having a good year. And this was certainly not going to be a good year, not with the major repairs that the house and the barn needed, and who knew what else…

Luke shook the thoughts out of his head as he realized that there were tears in Bo's eyes again.

"And then, here's the dumbest part of all," his blonde cousin continued. "I was standin' here, thinkin' all of that and I looked at our tree, remember our tree, Luke?" The brunette nodded, as Bo gestured to the partly fallen oak. "Well, I looked at it there, half on the ground – and it was too much. I mean, the crops, the livestock, I can handle thinkin' about them. But I look at a stupid tree and…" Strong arms came around him and pulled him close. Luke's wetness was rapidly transferring to Bo, but if the blonde minded, he didn't say a word.

Luke also didn't speak, just held onto his cousin as his priorities silently shifted in his head. He'd been so focused on physical discomforts like rain, and material things, like the contents of Jesse's room. Bo was mourning something much more basic than that. And while Luke didn't have the emotional vocabulary to put words to it, he knew that he'd been concentrating too hard on fixing the house and not hard enough on fixing what was hurting his cousin. They both needed some sense of normalcy and control. Tomorrow, Luke promised himself, they'd figure out how to do that. For now, he just held on, willing himself to be the very impersonation of their Uncle Jesse as he comforted his cousin. And looking out at all the broken trees and shrubs that had been stripped of their late summer foliage, Luke had to swallow a lump in his own throat. There was something inherently distressing about the damage to the natural things, like vegetation.

"I'm sorry, Luke," his cousin finally muttered, after several minutes of silence.

"Don't be," Luke gave the other boy one more squeeze before helping him to his feet. "You go on inside and I'll take the garbage on out towards the road. The squirrels and 'coons can have what they want of it, and we'll clean up whatever's left later. Mostly we just need to get it away from the house."

Heading back out into the rain, the older boy no longer minded the cold water dripping down the back of his neck. Maybe it was because he was too wet to feel it, but he decided it was more likely because he'd made the decision that it was a minor discomfort. He'd allowed it to distract him for this afternoon, but he and Bo had bigger worries to deal with.

Re-entering the house he'd grown up in, Luke found his cousin sitting at the kitchen table, and without thinking, did something he hadn't done since Bo's preteen years: reaching out his right hand, he mussed his cousin's curls.

"I think maybe we both been doing too much thinkin', cuz," he said, gently. "It's been a long day and we ain't slept much. What say I help you upstairs and we get us some shuteye?"

"Okay, Luke, but first, would you do me a favor?"

"What's that, brother?" All these terms and gestures of endearment were surprising Luke every bit as much as they surprised Bo.

"Would you sit down here with me and have dinner? Really eat something? Please?"

Luke turned and headed for the hoard of food that Daisy had brought back from Rhuebottom's what seemed like years ago. "You got it, Bo."


	16. We Got Nothin'

_Well - I'm up in the middle of the night for no really good reason. Not my idea of fun! So I figured, maybe if I post this next chapter, I can put my mind to rest. What can I say? I didn't get enough sleep to be logical._

_Thanks to everyone who has been riding out the storm with the boys. I'm sure they appreciate your concern. I know I appreciate your feedback._

_I don't own them, and frankly, I don't hardly control them, neither. They seem to control me, including my dialect. Nothing like sitting in what is supposed to be a serious meeting and using a few ain'ts and some double negatives, just for good measure! For all that they run the show, they don't earn me any income._

* * *

**Chapter 16 – We Got Nothin'**

The next morning dawned cool, clear and sunny, as if in response to Luke's wish for no more rain. However, the boys got up well after dawn, thanks to the boards that still covered their bedroom window, blocking the sun from awakening them. Eventually they rose and Luke checked Bo's ankle before declaring him healthy enough to head off to the shower by himself.

"You can go first, cousin," the older boy offered. "Ain't gonna be no hot water anyways."

And just as Luke had predicted, the water was cold and the showers were short. Luke helped Bo down the stairs, where the two had an impromptu family meeting.

"When do you think we'll have electricity and phones?" Bo asked.

As always, Luke proved to have an opinion: "It's gonna be awhile. It ain't just the main cables that are down. It's all the little wires between the houses and the transformers."

"Yeah, I saw that ours was gone. Did you see it anywhere?"

"Not yet, and when you start walkin' around out there, I want you to be careful. Odds are that phone wire's out there somewhere, and so are the electrical ones. Hopefully they're dead, but they might still have juice in them, and I don't want you gettin' hurt."

"You be careful too, Luke. They could be under the water."

"Could be," Luke agreed, eyebrows cocked at a danger he hadn't yet considered. They didn't need to be stepping in electrified puddles. "Let's stay out of the front, except where we've already been, until things dry up some."

"I guess," Bo lamented.

"Cuz? You ain't even goin' outside today." This wasn't really news to the younger Duke, though they hadn't officially discussed it yet. "Why would you care that we can't go too far out front?"

"I wanted to know what the roads look like, how long it might be before they're passable."

"Ah, Bo," Luke consoled, intuitively understanding. "I think it's gonna be awhile before Jesse and Daisy make it home. I wish we could call them and tell them not to try. If there's trees down and flooding in the yard, well, the roads ain't gonna be no better."

"I guess," the blonde answered. "I just wanna know that they're all right, you know? I know the hurricane wasn't supposed to be so bad up there but…"

"I know what you're sayin', Bo. Me, too."

They sat in silence for a little while, looking into their mugs, thinking about the empty chairs around them. Bo reflected back to the departure of his kin and all of the advice Jesse had given them. They hadn't exactly heeded all of it, but they'd survived, using their instincts. He supposed his uncle and female cousin would do the same, if they needed to. Then another thought occurred to him.

"Hey, Luke, we ain't tried the radio since yesterday mornin'. Wonder if anything's on the air?"

"Good point. Maybe we can learn how the rest of the area fared by listenin'."

Bo stood and carefully walked to retrieve the gadget in question.

"How's that ankle feel with weight on it, cousin?"

"Not too bad." Sitting back down, Bo turned the radio on and twiddled the dial, eventually finding a static punctuated Atlanta news station. He turned the volume down low, for now, and returned his attention to Luke.

"So, what's today's plan?"

Together the boys worked out a schedule. They pulled out their pocket watches for the first time in days, and synchronized them, agreeing when Luke would come in for lunch, and what time Bo could expect him for dinner. It wasn't a typical Luke Duke plan, where everything came down to split second timing. But knowing what time it was and deciding when they'd do things was part of trying to get back to a normal schedule. Luke thought it would help them.

"I ain't goin' far, Bo. Just the barn and the back of the house, an' maybe up on the roof. Best as I can tell, we got lucky up there and only got us some dents in the tin, but I want to check again today. Still, if you need me, you holler, all right?"

"Right. And Luke?"

"What?"

"Stay dry, cousin," Bo said, favoring Luke with a grin. With a gentle swat to the back of Bo's head, Luke was gone.

* * *

That first full day after the storm proved to be exhausting but productive for the boys. By lunch Luke had declared the remnants of Jesse's room stable enough for Bo to go in there and salvage what he could, and over the afternoon, the blonde discovered that most of what was in there could be cleaned or fixed. The bed was a total loss, but the mattress had been in the living room at the time, so it was still in good condition. The clothes in the old man's closet, few as they were, had not been damaged. And most importantly, the photo of their Aunt Lavinia that never moved from the patriarch's night stand was still there, smiling at Bo as he picked her up. The sight of his adoptive mother gave the blonde strength to deal with the mess he was cleaning. That and the fact that by listening to the radio, he had learned that while there was some flooding as the storm went north, it sounded like Nashville hadn't experienced anywhere near the violence that Hazzard had. 

Luke, meanwhile, managed to get the boards off the windows all around the house, and he placed some of the better plywood over the tarp that covered the hole in his uncle's room, thus providing the area with better protection against the elements. He confirmed the relatively good condition of the farmhouse roof, then he set to checking on the equipment in the barn. The structure itself looked much the worse for wear, but it seemed that everything inside had been reasonably well protected. By dinner time, the Duke farmhouse had electricity, thanks to the old generator.

"But we're only gonna use it for a couple hours a day, cousin," Luke warned as he headed up the stairs to get out of yet another pair of wet jeans. The skies were kind, but the yard was still under water, and there was no way to get from one part to another without trudging through it. By the end of all this, Luke would need new boots. But they'd go towards the bottom of the list, after a new barn, a new roof on Jesse's room, a new porch…

The next day, the boys rose closer to their regular time, and Bo declared his own ankle back to normal. Not fully trusting the blonde, Luke had checked it over and allowed as how Bo was on the mend. Still, walking any kind of distance was off-limits.

"I ain't goin' any further than you do, Luke."

"You ain't goin' any further than the barn, Bo."

And it was settled.

The yard was still wet, but the water was only ankle deep by now. So long as the clear weather held, they ought to be dealing with just mud by tomorrow, and maybe they'd even have solid ground after that.

The boys spent the morning taking down the rest of the oak that they'd shared as children. It wasn't a task that either of them relished, but they couldn't afford to let it stand there. A good gust of wind could knock it towards the front of the house, and neither boy felt compelled to see a tree come through the living room windows. After lunch, they sawed and chopped what was left into firewood-sized pieces. When there was only a few hours worth of work left to do on that project, Luke left Bo to finish and headed for the barn. Figuring out what to do about that structure was going to be the boys' next big project. Luke wished they had a second barn, but of course, they had razed that. Only a week ago the family had had two barns. Now it seemed likely that they'd soon have none.

Bo had finished splitting the logs before he realized that it had been a long time since his older cousin had been around. The blonde headed towards the barn, calling for Luke all the way. Not finding him there, Bo began to search wider. When he got to the back of the house, there was still no Luke, but the blonde was able to see exactly what things looked like back there for the first time. It seemed both better and worse than he imagined it. The porch was a total loss, and he mentally added pulling the last of it away from the house and destroying it to the boys' list of tasks. But Jesse's room was not as bad from the outside as it had seemed from inside, especially when they'd first seen it. Luke had done a fine job of getting the branch off of there, and covering the hole it had left behind. But, another project for that mental list: they'd have to take down the tree that had lost that large branch. It looked somewhat fragile now, too.

He'd been all around the house without finding his cousin, and now Bo was starting to get worried. Luke hadn't gone out of earshot since the storm, and Bo hadn't expected him to do so now.

Following the tree line, the blonde started to check the more remote parts of the property. There was no logical choice as to the direction the oldest Duke cousin had taken, so Bo just followed his impulses. Making his way carefully around fallen trees and slippery leaves, the blonde finally came to a clearing and spotted his cousin. Luke was sitting on the boulder next to "their" pond, the one they had created by damming up the stream all those years ago. Bo noticed the other man's posture: his head was down and his face was in his hands. The younger Duke had a good idea of what that meant. He came up behind his cousin and laid a gentle hand on his back, knowing that when he was upset, Luke was unpredictable.

At the touch of Bo's hand, though, Luke's shoulders simply slumped. It was a good sign and a bad one. It indicated that the brunette wouldn't snap at him, tell him to get lost and mind his own business. But it also meant that his strong older cousin was hurting pretty badly.

Bo sat next to the miserable boy he'd grown up admiring, and put a firm arm around his shoulders. Luke wouldn't want to let Bo see him cry, so the blonde just sat there, saying nothing, staring out over the pond. Eventually the other boy moved slightly under Bo's arm, running his hands over his face and through his dark hair before lifting his head to join Bo in looking across the water in front of them.

"What're you doing here?" Luke finally asked, an extra bit of rasp in his voice. "I told you not to go no further than the barn."

"And I didn't listen to you. What else is new?" Bo's joke made it impossible for Luke to pursue the angle he'd attempted, distracting Bo from his own tears by making the blonde feel guilty for coming out here in the first place. Now that he'd disarmed Luke, Bo came to the tricky task of getting his clammed up cousin to talk. The youngster was deciding exactly how he was going to do that, when Luke's head went down again, and he mumbled something.

"Huh?" It wasn't the most intelligent thing Bo had ever said, but it seemed to work.

"I said, we got nothin'."

"Whaddya mean?"

"Come on, Bo!" Luke snarled. "What do you think I mean? The barn – it's just gonna have to come down. Can't save that thing. The livestock are out in the caves where we can't even get to them. Some great idea that was. And then there's Jesse's room, the porch…"

"The livestock, they got enough food for another day or two. If we hadn't taken them up there like you suggested, well, they'd be scattered everywhere now, maybe killed by fallen trees or flooding. And the rest of it is just stuff, Luke. It'll take time, but we'll put it all back together and rebuild it."

"How're we gonna do that, Bo? Huh? When we ain't got any money? And we ain't gonna have none, either. The crops…"

"You went and looked the crops?" Bo knew they'd have to go out there soon and check on them, but he'd been dreading it, having a pretty good idea what they'd find.

Luke nodded, the fight gone out of him. "They're gone Bo. Ain't gonna be no harvest this year." The boys sat in silence for a moment. Finally, Luke spoke again. "Uncle Jesse left us here to take care of the farm…"

"Ain't no way to protect crops against a hurricane, Luke."

"An' he's gonna come back to a farm that ain't got no crops, no livestock, no barn, and has barely got a house…"

"How were you supposed to keep all that from happening, Luke?" Bo's voice was starting to rise now, even as Luke's got quieter.

"And you. I let you get hurt."

"Lukas!" Bo was getting really frustrated now. "I got a twisted ankle, and I sure ain't gonna die of that. And you didn't_ let_ me get hurt. I'm a big boy now, Luke, like it or not. If there's trouble comin', I'm gonna pull out all the stops to help. An' if I turn my ankle, or even break it, it don't matter none. I'm gonna do everything I can to protect my home. Just like you are. So quit actin' like my ankle is yours to protect, 'cause it ain't!"

Luke was staring at him now, anger gone from his features. If anything, the older boy's face projected curiosity.

"What?" Bo growled at him.

"I was just wondering when you turned into Uncle Jesse. I ain't never been yelled at quite like that, except by him."

Bo wanted to laugh and he wanted to stay serious. He'd been making an important point to his older cousin, and he needed Luke to hear what he was saying.

Seeing the mixed emotions on his cousin's face, Luke let him off the hook. "All right, cousin, all right. Point taken. It's just, lookin' at all that cotton, stripped bare to the twigs…"

"Yeah," Bo agreed, sadly. "I wouldn't have taken it well, either."

"Half of me wants Jesse here now, and the other half says, let him stay away for a month, or at least until we can sort of clean the place up."

Bo tightened his grip around his older cousin's shoulders. Luke really did take protecting his home and family seriously, and Bo understood how he felt about not wanting Jesse to see the chaos that was their farm. But the blonde was not nearly so conflicted. He wanted his uncle here right now. First, just to know the old man was safe. And second, so he could help Bo deal with his stubborn cousin.

"What a mess," Luke lamented. "I almost wish it had leveled the place…"

"You don't mean that."

Watching the late light shimmer across their heavily swollen pond, the brunette shook his head.

"I guess not. It just don't make a lot of sense. Why does the wind knock over that tree there, and not this one here?" Luke asked, and Bo followed his gestures, suddenly realizing that what had once been a nicely shaded pond would now get warmed by a lot more sun. "Why did that stupid dam we built some fifteen years ago hold, even with all that water pushin' on it, but the barn ain't gonna survive what the wind did to it?" Luke picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water in front of them, disturbing the smooth pattern of its surface. "We don't need this here swimmin' hole. We need a barn."

"I don't know, cousin, but I'm glad the pond is still here. I mean, we lost so many things, and I'm just glad for each thing that we still got."

Luke shook his head. Leave it to Bo to see things that way. For once, though, his cousin's optimism wasn't going to change his own mood.

"Why does a storm have to come and destroy the crops in September when it's too early for us to have harvested, but too late for us to plant somethin' else?" Luke's head went back down.

Bo had no answer to that one. The two sat for a few more minutes before Luke's head came up again.

"Come on, cuz," Bo said quietly. "Let's go home and get some dinner in you."

Luke nodded and slipped his arm around Bo's ribs, supporting him as they stood.

"How's that ankle?"

"It's fine, Luke."

"Don't tell me it's fine, I can see you favoring it, there."

"You ain't gotta worry about my ankle, cousin."

"You ain't gotta worry about whether or not I eat dinner."

To anyone who didn't know the boys, it would have sounded like an argument. For the Duke cousins, it was the familiar song of their lives, and they were each grateful to have the other to harmonize with.


	17. Underwear Hangin' Out

_Don't own, don't earn, don't have much to say._

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 17 - Underwear Hangin' Out**

It had been four days since Bo had seen anyone's face but Luke's. Normally, his older cousin's mug was near the top of Bo's list of favorite faces, second only to an attractive woman, but by this point, the youngest of the Dukes was ready to look at someone, anyone, besides Luke. They were both getting kind of scruffy, since they were using the generator only for a couple of hours each evening, leaving them with little light and mostly cold water. Cosmetic cleanliness was not a high priority under those conditions. This meant the oldest Duke cousin was getting ugly, in the summation of his younger compatriot. In fact, he'd informed Luke of that very fact, just this morning.

"Bo, you ain't _gettin'_ ugly, you was born that way," was the response he'd gotten.

Before teasing could grow into testiness, the blonde had gone outside to check whether the water had receded enough to explore more of the property today. He hadn't gotten far before he heard the sound of an engine, and with a whoop, he ran towards the noise to find Cooter slipping along in a four-wheel drive vehicle on the Dukes' long, muddy driveway. Surprising both himself and the mechanic, Bo flung himself at his friend almost before the mechanic could get out of the automobile, greeting him with a tremendous bear hug. Luke was not far behind, but was somewhat more reserved, simply slapping Cooter heartily on the back.

"It's good to see ya'll, too," their friend said, understanding the intensity of the greeting. This had been the first day he'd even dared to try leaving the paved streets in the heart of town. And even in a vehicle designed for muddy driving, he'd had a hairy trip out here. "How you boys holding up?"

"We're fine Cooter," Luke answered quickly, trying to prevent Bo from telling their friend just how emotional they'd both been. "How's town?"

"Well, now, lookin' around here, I'd say town fared a mite better'n y'all did. You boys need help?"

"We…" Luke had been about to refuse, but he couldn't. The two of them were in desperate need of help. Looking at Bo, he could see that his cousin felt the same. "Much obliged, buddy. But first, come have coffee and tell us how town held up."

"Yeah, we ain't seen no one, an' with WHOGG off the air and us not being able to reach anyone on the CB, we don't know nothin'," Bo agreed.

In the Dukes' kitchen, sipping at what passed for coffee, Cooter could tell right away that the house had been invaded by water, both from the streaks on the floor and the slight smell of mildew. He'd also noticed the pile of firewood where once there had been a tree, and had seen the way the barn listed to one side. His friends were in some trouble, but as was typical of this family, they were more concerned about the rest of the town.

"Well boys, Hazzard Square don't look quite like she did when you was last there. The Courthouse, well, it stood up fine. And yes, Rosco and Enos survived all right, too. Enos will be pleased as punch to know you're all right. He's been worried about y'all."

"Tell him we said thanks for thinkin' about us," Bo responded, feeling tears prick at his indigo eyes. Though he was as tired of the intense emotions as Luke was, he didn't seem to be able to help himself. He swallowed hard and said, "What else?"

"Well, the bank's all right, too, and you know Boss is happier'n a hog in slop about that one."

"All right, but you said Hazzard Square don't look the same. What happened? Don't tell me the garage…" Luke asked hesitantly.

"Nope, Lukas, the garage did pretty well. I got some water in there, but you know that don't matter none. Just redistributed the grease spots, is all. And the one door don't open and close so well right now, but it'll be all right, once it dries out. Gonna have to fix me some leaks in the roof, but it ain't in no desperate straits or nothin'."

"All right, buddy. Enough. Now tell us what didn't do so good." Though he wasn't really sure he wanted to hear this, Bo just had to know.

"Well, Rhuebottom's lost a window, and took on some water. The family ain't here to fix it, so's I just took one of the boards that they used to protect the courthouse and covered the hole with it for now. I'm bettin' they got insurance, and I don't want to mess things up for their claim by tryin' to fix nothin'." The Duke boys nodded at the wisdom of Cooter's plan, while they were each secretly envious that most everything in town was insured, but none of the farms out here could afford such a luxury. Well, insurance had seemed like a luxury, until now.

"And most of the stores there, they took some kind of damage, like broken windows and flooding. And the first floor of the hotel took on water either through or under the walls, but we always knew that building weren't exactly solid."

"No kiddin'. Boss had those crews throw that thing up in a week. He's lucky it stood up," Bo snickered.

"There's lots of trees down, too, blockin' roads and makin' a mess. 'Least they was. I hauled 'em out of the road, best I could, with the tow truck. It ain't like I had anything better to do."

"You ain't got power neither, do you," the older of the cousins stated, more than asked.

"Nope, buddyroe, we ain't. An' I lost my repeaters, too, so I ain't exactly pickin' up CB signals. I 'spect the tower's down, too, though I ain't been out there, yet. Not that there's really much of anyone around to be broadcastin'. Town's still pretty empty. Oh, I almost forgot. The gazebo?"

"Yeah?"

"It ain't there no more." In spite of himself, Luke winced. He'd gotten his first kiss there, a long, long time ago.

"What about the houses?" Bo asked, needing to know everything now.

"Well, Boss's house is just fine, but most of the others didn't fare so well. They ain't as new or as well kept."

"Don't that just figure," Bo said, startling both of the other men by slamming his open hand on the table. "The one person who could afford to fix anything that got broken, and he ain't got nothin' to fix."

"Steady, Bo," his older cousin said, but his normally cool blue eyes were burning with angry fire. He'd already been raging against the injustices of this storm, and this news didn't make him feel any better.

After a moment of silence, during which the Duke boys took a few deep breaths, Luke finally asked, "What about you Cooter? You been out to your farm? How'd it hold up?"

"Just went through there on the way here," the mechanic said, answering only half the question.

Mistaking the reason, Bo put a hand on Cooter's shoulder. "How bad?"

"Uh, well, I didn't really check all of it." This much was true, and Cooter hoped his friends would accept that answer and quit asking for more information. It nearly broke his heart to see the condition of the Duke farm, right after having discovered that his own, non-functional property had come through with flying colors. The Davenport farm was just a remnant of a past before automobiles. Ever since motorized vehicles had first made their way into the south, not a single Davenport had touched a plow.

"Well, we'll help you check it out, later. For now, you think that high-steppin' vehicle you got out there can make it to the old Indian caves? We got us some livestock out there to tend to," Luke admitted.

"Shoot fire, that thing can take you anywhere you want to go boys. You name it."

"I just did," Luke reminded him. "Let's get up to them caves."

* * *

Much to the oldest Duke cousin's relief, most of the animals were healthy, though they'd lost a couple chickens. Bo and Luke debated leaving the livestock where they were, considering the condition of the barn, but decided against it, knowing they had so much work to do back at home that coming up here to feed them would be a hardship. They could move the chicken coop outside without a problem, and the goat didn't mind where she lived. Maudine was the only one that needed a stall, but she'd last a few days out in the pasture until Bo and Luke could decide what to do about her.

Seeing that his cousin was relishing the company of their mechanic friend, and knowing that he, himself, was still a bit out of sorts, Luke agreed to ride Maudine home while the other boys piled the rest of the animals into the four-wheel drive and took them back to the farm. Setting a cross-country course, Luke was alternately amazed and dismayed. Just as the storm had spared the Hogg homestead and damaged the Dukes', there were some trees that were destroyed while others stood, hardly missing any leaves. And the brunette had to be careful of the route he chose, because some areas were flooded while others were relatively dry. Passing Bald Hill, a small mountain so named for the dearth of trees on its slopes, he saw it had lost some dirt. The mess wasn't quite large enough to be called a mudslide, but Luke was definitely glad he hadn't been under it when it came down. In some ways, the country he was riding through now, though he ought to have known it as well as he knew Bo and Daisy, seemed about as familiar as the surface of the moon. He wasn't exactly enjoying the way the changes to the landscape made him feel.

By the time the typically grumpy mule and the moody Duke boy returned to the farmstead, Bo and Cooter had already unloaded the livestock and re-situated the chicken coop. Having been fed and watered, the animals seemed to have already forgotten the trauma of the last few days. Hitching Maudine to the front porch and providing her with hay and water, Luke set off in search of the humans that ought to be somewhere nearby. And they weren't far. Luke found them around the back of the house, near the remnants of the porch. The oldest Duke boy couldn't explain, even to himself, the discomfort, bordering on anger, that he felt when he saw the mechanic lift the corner of the tarp he had placed over the exterior of Jesse's room.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Leave that alone!"

"Easy, buddy," Cooter answered, taking no offense. "I just wanted to see what it looked like under there."

"It looks like splinters, torn shingles and broken glass. There, now you ain't gotta look," the angry boy growled.

Bo looked from one man to the other, watching as Luke's neck and cheek muscles tensed. He didn't understand his cousin's behavior, but there was no question about the seriousness of his stance. Cooter, in contrast, was simply startled and clearly confused by his friend's demeanor. But, just like a dog whose tail wags a mile a minute, Cooter was smiling as charmingly as he could and backing away from the tarp.

"All right Luke, I ain't lookin' at nothin'."

"Uh, Cooter, buddy, why don't you go inside and have some coffee? Me and Luke'll be along in a minute," Bo suggested.

"Good idea," their mechanic friend agreed, turning and walking away before adding the next part under his breath. "I'll go inside, but I ain't putting no more of that awful stuff into my mouth."

Bo watched Luke's brilliant blue eyes slide off to the side, the way they did when he was upset, but didn't want anyone to know it. Seeing how bad his cousin was feeling lent Bo a patience that he didn't normally have.

"Cousin? You want to tell me what that was about? Cooter just wants to help us."

"Don't it feel wrong to you, him lookin' at Jesse's room like that?" Luke's eyes came back to center and stared hard into Bo's deeper blue.

"I don't know, I think he's seen Jesse's room before."

"Yeah, but not like this. Not with… Jesse's underwear hangin' out," Luke tried to explain.

"I cleaned that all out of there. There ain't nothin' personal layin' around in there."

The older boy waved a hand in the air. "Not literally maybe. But… Uncle Jesse and Aunt Lavinia would never in our lives let someone see that room if the bed wasn't made and everything wasn't exactly in its place, you know? It just don't seem right to let anyone but us in there until it's fixed." These last words were said through a constricted throat, and Luke's eyes skittered away from Bo's again.

Bo's gaze softened, as he understood his cousin's anguish. It wasn't just their uncle's modesty he was protecting, but the memory of his aunt.

"Okay, Lukas," he said gently, placing both hands on his cousin's shoulders and giving them a squeeze. "Okay. No one but you and me in that room, I get it. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinkin'." Bo was used to being the more emotional and sentimental of the two boys. But one of the benefits of being more open in that way was that he had a well-developed sense of compassion. He didn't know exactly why Luke was hurting worse than he was right now, but it didn't matter. Whatever his older cousin needed, Bo would be there for him.

Luke nodded in response Bo's apology, then gave in to the strong temptation to hug his cousin, telling himself that it was a conciliatory embrace, but letting it linger a little longer than he normally would. Both of them badly needed the physical contact right now.

"Did you tell him about the crops yet, Bo?" Luke asked, finally pulling away and turning to walk towards the front of the house.

Blonde curls flopped as Bo shook his head. "I couldn't. He'd just want to give us whatever savings he's got. But he's gonna need that for himself."

"I guess. We're gonna have to tell him sooner or later, though. Maybe after Jesse gets home. He's better at tellin' people no."

"Ain't that the truth," Bo laughed.

The boys quieted as they came to the front door and joined Cooter in the kitchen.

"Ah, buddy…" Luke began.

"Don't worry about it, Lukas," the good-natured mechanic responded. He didn't need an explanation of his friend's behavior; he'd known Luke since childhood. And, as if to prove that the privacy of Jesse's room had been violated, Cooter had been able to hear every word the boys just said, since there was essentially a hole in the back of the farmhouse. Cooter felt awful for his oldest friends, knowing what they were going through. He silently swore he'd find ways to help them, even if they tried to refuse him.

"So, what you wanna tackle first? The porch? The barn?" Cooter grinned his willingness to get started.

"Ah, Cooter? I appreciate you wantin' to get to work and all, but… is there any chance you could take us to town?" Bo asked.

Luke raised an eyebrow in silent question. He and his cousin hadn't discussed this.

"I was thinkin', maybe we can find a workin' phone somewheres? Like maybe the sheriff's station or somethin'?" Bo desperately wanted to try to track down his other cousin and his uncle, not just for himself, but for Luke, as well.

"Great idea, cousin. What say, Cooter?"

"Buddyroes, you got it. They was workin' on gettin' the switchboard up this mornin'. Maybe you'll get lucky."

* * *

The drive into town left the Duke boys a little sick to their stomachs. First, despite the fact that the vehicle that they were in was meant for rough terrain, it slipped sideways in the deep and watery mud several times, as their mechanic friend drove around the trees and debris in the road. But second, and perhaps more important, as they got close to town and saw the emptiness and damage, they were reminded of the abandoned mining towns throughout the local countryside. They were beginning to wonder if anyone would bother to come back to Hazzard, or whether the town they loved was doomed to die. 

As Cooter parked the large vehicle outside the garage, Bo caught a glimpse of orange gleaming from the interior, and went to see the General Lee. He knew that Cooter hadn't even begun to fix the car yet, nor would he be able to for probably weeks. But the Charger was very much a part of Bo's sense of "normal," and he needed to see it almost as badly as he needed to feel his uncle's soft arms around him.

Watching his cousin go, Luke studied the structure that the General was housed in. True to Cooter's word, it had stood up well, and had only superficial problems. But it sure did look like a scary place to have been during the hurricane.

"Cooter?"

"What, Lukas?"

"What was it like, goin' through the storm alone? I mean, me and Bo, well, we had some bad moments. But there was two of us. What was it like with no one there to help you stay calm?"

The mechanic blushed slightly. "Tell you the truth, buddy, I was so scared when it started to get serious that I went over and stayed in the Courthouse with Rosco, Enos, Boss Hogg and Miss Lulu. So I can't answer your question."

"I'm glad you stayed safe, Cooter. A hurricane ain't nothin' to fool with. Me and Bo learned that the hard way." Before his friend could ask what he meant by that, Luke was calling, "Hey Bo! Come on, let's see whether we can find us a working phone."

As he watched the blonde emerge from out of the General's driver's side window, Cooter realized he'd been talking to the boys about all the wrong things. The most important question was not how the Duke property had weathered the storm, but how the boys had.


	18. A Few Tears

_I don't think I've ever posted two days in a row before, but ya'll really seemed to want the boys to talk to Jesse..._

_Thanks to everyone who has been reading, and of course, special thanks to those who take the time to review._

_I own nothing but the headaches and heartaches that I give the boys. _

**

* * *

**

**Chapter 18 - A Few Tears**

The boys sat in the tiny switchboard office, huddled together over the phone. It was the only working telephone line in all of Hazzard County, and they'd had to get permission from Boss Hogg to use it. It had been remarkably easy to do, since Miss Lulu had been in the commissioner's office with him when they went to ask.

"Dah, you Dukes, what are you doing here?" the pudgy man had greeted them, though his eyes traveled over them carefully, making sure they were healthy. "You ain't here lookin' for some kind of a county fund to rebuild your farm or something, are you? 'Cause we ain't got no fund like that." The man in white was making sure that no one mistook him for a source of money, that much was true. But he also hoped that his words would prompt the boys to tell him they didn't need to rebuild. He wanted to hear that they were all right, but didn't know how to ask.

"No, Boss," Luke said in the annoyed tone that he almost always took with the man. "We ain't here for money. Hi, Miss Lulu," he added, oozing charm.

As she always did when one of the Duke boys turned his attentions to her, Lulu blushed. While she might technically be Mrs. Jefferson Davis Hogg, the aging, heavyset woman indulged certain fantasies involving these two particularly attractive young men.

"Oh, hi Luke," she cooed. "Hi Bo. I hope you boys are all right?"

"We're fine Miss Lulu," Bo answered, all smiles.

"That's nice. Have you heard from your Uncle Jesse?" Lulu Hogg had always been a bit spoiled, even back when she was a Coltrane. She had somehow been raised in Hazzard, one of the most universally poor counties in all of Georgia, without ever understanding hardship. She was often clueless, but always sweet, so even when her questions revealed her ignorance, no one ever seemed to get annoyed with her.

"No, ma'am," Bo answered, effortlessly slipping from the role of flirtatious young man to orphaned little boy. Luke always marveled at the many ways that Bo Duke had of getting what he wanted from a woman. "See, that's why we're here," the blonde continued, mournfully. "We ain't got a working phone, of course, and we don't know if Jesse and Daisy are all right." It was true enough.

"We was wonderin' if we could use the switchboard, now that you got it up and runnin'," Luke asked, looking at Bo in amused frustration. That boy was shameless.

"Dat, dat, dat, that's the emergency line! It's the only phone we got!"

"We won't stay on it for long, Boss," Luke promised. "Ain't nobody in the whole county got a workin' phone, so no one's gonna call that emergency line anyways." The older of the Dukes might not play on the heartstrings like his cousin did, but his logic was always sound.

"Oh, Sweet Potato," Lulu fairly whined. "Couldn't you see your way to letting them use the phone for just a little while?" The boys stood back and watched her use her large body to corner her mate even as he sat in his executive chair, before she bent to kiss his face, wetly. "Why, I can't imagine that my little dumpling could be so mean as to keep two poor, young boys from talking to their family."

Bo winced, realizing he'd been enticing this very woman only moments before, and now she was using that same technique on her mate. He was suddenly grateful that the large matron had never returned his flirtation, since her methods seemed to resemble the mating ritual of the black widow spider.

Just before his wife could devour him, Boss relented. "All right, you boys just go over there, get out of my sight. I got all kinds of more important work to do around here."

Bo was tempted to ask what exactly he was doing, since the town was in shambles and the commissioner didn't seem to be lifting a finger to do anything about it, but he decided to let it go for now. Talking to his uncle was more important than prodding the County Commissioner to action. For now.

"Lulu, chicken pot pie, why don't you just take those boys over there and tell Enos to let them use the phone?"

The older woman turned as if to do just that, but Luke said, "No thanks, Miss Lulu, Boss, we'll tell him ourselves," as the boys quickly backed out of the room.

Giggling, they trotted down the courthouse steps. "You got lucky there, Bo. I thought you was gonna have to take her to the next cotillion."

"Hush, Luke, don't you wish that on me."

As they headed to the switchboard, Cooter joined them to see how their negotiations with Boss had worked out. The three young men were laughing at the idea of Bo and Lulu attending the Hazzard High Homecoming dance together when they got to where Enos sat, staring at the switchboard.

"Hey, Enos, how you doing?" Bo's greeting was warmer and more excited than usual, as if it had been more than a few days since he'd last seen the deputy.

"Hi, Bo! Hi, Luke!" Enos jumped up and stuck his hand out to shake. The wrinkles formed by the happy grin on his face nearly lifted the deputy's hat right off of his head.

After vigorous handshakes and assurances that everyone was all right after the hurricane, Bo announced what they'd come for.

"Hey, Enos, Boss gave us permission to try to track down Jesse and Daisy with that phone there. You mind?"

"Shoot, no, Bo. I was just sittin' here watchin' for it to ring, like he told me to, but it ain't rung once yet."

"Imagine that," Luke said with a grin.

"You go right ahead, boys." Enos said, standing to get out of their way, but not leaving the tiny room.

"Um…" Bo said.

"Enos, old buddy, what say you and me leave these boys alone for a few minutes, okay? Come on over to the garage and we'll have us some cold coffee." With a wink to his friends, the mechanic led the deputy away.

And now the cousins were huddled, heads together, over the single handset that Bo held between them, listening to a phone ring and praying someone would pick it up.

After what seemed like an awful lot of rings, the boys heard a familiar voice.

"_Hello?"_

"Aunt Katherine? This is Bo, and Luke's here with me. Is our Uncle Jesse, is Daisy…" Bo stumbled, but his sentence didn't need to be completed.

"_Bo, Luke! Your uncle's been so worried about you boys. We was just sittin' down to lunch. Let me go get him."_

The boys listened as, with a scraping sound, the phone was obviously laid down. A few seconds later there was a similar scraping sound followed by, _"Bo, Luke? Are you boys all right?"_

At the sound of his uncle's voice, Bo couldn't help himself. He began to cry.

Luke held himself together, but the tightness of his throat was audible. "Yeah, Jesse," he answered quietly, putting an arm around his cousin. "We're all right."

"_Thank you, Lord,"_ Jesse said, just as quietly, with just as much emotion in his voice. _"Me and Daisy, we tried to get home to you yesterday, but we had to turn around when we got off the interstate. There ain't no safe passage back right now."_

"We figured as much," Luke said, silently coaxing his younger cousin to speak, but the blonde couldn't seem to swallow down his tears. "But we'll be all right until you get back, Uncle Jesse. Cooter's got a four wheel drive, and he's gonna help us get into town when we need to. We'll manage."

"_I know you will, Luke. You're good, strong boys, and I love you."_

The brunette suddenly couldn't speak either, choked by the intensity of his emotions.

"_Bo, son, you there?"_ Jesse called gently.

Wiping at his face and swallowing hard, the younger boy answered, "Yes, sir."

"_All right, boy. You don't gotta worry about a few tears. Your Uncle Jesse's seen them before, remember."_

Bo shook his head and smiled through the dampness on his face. Their uncle always knew, almost by instinct, whatever it was they were trying to hide from him.

"Yes, sir."

"_You tell your cousin that, too,"_ the old man said with a slight chuckle.

Bo switched from holding the phone with his right hand to his left, so he could slide his nearest arm around Luke. He knew the older boy must be terribly embarrassed, but he also knew they'd both been through so much lately that no one was blaming Luke for the way he was feeling.

"He knows, Uncle Jesse," Bo said, sparing Luke from having to pull himself together enough to talk.

"_Where are you boys calling from, anyways? I been trying to call the farm since the night of the storm, since the last time we talked. I ain't never got nothin' but a busy signal."_

"Yeah, all the phone lines in town is on the ground, including ours. At least we think ours is on the ground. Maybe it blew away. Anyways we can't find it. So we're callin' you from the main switchboard."

"_All right, well, you keep callin' when you can, then. And we'll come home as soon as the roads'll let us."_

"Yes, sir," a small amount of panic made its way into Bo's voice, as this was already starting to sound like the end of the conversation, and it had only just begun.

"_Steady, son," _Jesse soothed. _"Luke?"_

"Yes sir?" The older boy managed.

"_I ain't goin' to ask you boys about the farm, and I'm not gonna let Daisy do that either. Whatever's done is done. You boys do what you can, but don't hurt yourselves. We'll manage, so long as we all stay healthy."_

"Yes, sir," Luke choked out.

"_Now, I'm gonna put Daisy on, and you kids just talk about how much you miss each other, and then you cheer each other up, you hear me? I don't want no sad talk on this here phone line."_

Misty eyes turned to catch midnight blue in a shared chuckle. Their uncle was something else.

"_I love you boys,"_ Jesse said.

"We love you, too," his youngest answered, just before the old man turned the phone over to his niece. He stayed close to make sure the conversation was upbeat. He could tell that his boys were overwrought, and he knew that they had a habit of making bad decisions when they were in that condition. He wished he could be there to hold them like they were children, then steady them and send them on their way like the adults they'd become.

Instead, the patriarch contented himself with placing a strong hand on the head of his only female charge, while she made every effort to keep her cousins' spirits up.

* * *

Cooter all but moved into the Duke farm. Saying there was nothing he could do in town anyway, at least not until people started returning with broken down cars, he showed up at dawn and left after dark. With his help, the Duke boys managed to raze their second barn in a week, this time using the salvageable wood to build a pair of freestanding stalls for Maudine and the goat. The mule had her complaints about the thing, but was content enough to get into it at night. 

Luke made a separate pile of plywood and planks for a different project. While Bo and Cooter destroyed the remnants of the porch, Luke began patching the hole in his uncle's room. When he needed a second set of hands, he called Bo over, while Cooter made himself very busy feeding the livestock or clearing the fallen branches from the farmyard. Within a couple of days, the room was intact again, much to Bo's relief. He hoped his cousin could rest a little bit more easily now. But Luke still had some bees in his bonnet.

"Cooter, what you got by way of plaster fixins in your garage?" Luke asked as they ate a quick lunch of the canned foods that Daisy had brought home from Rhuebottom's before the storm.

"Plaster? You don't hardly use that on cars, Lukas."

"I know that, buddy, but it's just a composite. We just gotta get the right ingredients and put them together is all."

"Well, you're welcome to whatever you can find in my garage, buddy. Ain't nobody needin' a mechanic these days anyway." A few more days had passed since the boys had first reached their kin in Nashville, making it a full week since the hurricane had passed through Hazzard, and still, almost no one that had evacuated had made it back yet.

"It ain't enough, though."

"What ain't?" Bo asked, wondering what the brunette was up to this time.

"I can plaster Jesse's wall, and we can paint it, but he still ain't got nothin' but a mattress to sleep on. I…" Luke hadn't wanted to state his goal until now, fearing that saying it would somehow keep him from accomplishing it. "I want to put his room back together before he comes home."

"Luke," Bo said, reaching across the table to grab his cousin's forearm. "I know you want to make things right for him, but there ain't no way we can buy a bed frame and a box spring. Even if we had the money, there ain't no stores open to buy them from."

The older cousin sat back, arms folded across his chest, effectively breaking the physical contact with Bo. He shouldn't have started this conversation, not now. He didn't really want to talk about this in front of Cooter.

"I got it!" the mechanic said, startling Luke out of his sulk.

"Got what?" Bo's curiosity got the better of him.

"Well, the plaster thing, I still don't know about, but the bed, I can help you with."

"Aw, Cooter, now, we can't take none of your money," Luke reminded him. They'd already had this discussion two days ago, when the Dukes had finally been forced to admit that they'd lost their crops.

"Not money. Listen, my folks, they done moved to Texas, and they ain't comin' back. They left me with this farmhouse with more rooms in it than I know what to do with. And some of 'em got beds in 'em than ain't bein' used. Shoot, if we get the bed out of that master bedroom, I can turn it into a store room, put shelves on the walls…"

"Aw, Cooter," Bo was dubious. This sounded pretty contrived to him.

"Come on boys, it'll be helpin' us both out. I promise, ain't nobody usin' that bed."

The Duke boys looked at each other for a moment, doing that thing that drove Cooter up a wall. He watched as Bo raised an eyebrow, followed by Luke lifting a shoulder. Bo tilted his head slightly right, while Luke's left eye squinted just a little.

"Come on, can't you boys use words like normal people?"

"Nah, takes too long," Bo answered.

"We'll take the bed though," Luke grinned.


	19. You've Earned a Rest

_Hey, y'all! Well, I out-clevered myself this time. In the last chapter, I made a pun on "raising the barn," (building a new one) by talking about "razing the barn" (leveling the damaged one). I hadn't realized this was confusing until good ol' Hazzard Husker pointed out how quick they got themselves a new barn. Oops! Nope, no new barn - not yet. Stay tuned, though. A farm just ain't a farm without a barn. I won't leave 'em without one forever!_

_Thanks to everyone who has been following this tale, and double thanks to those who comment._

_I own nothing but the daydreams (and wow, what daydreams!) and the plot. I earn nothing for what I have written._

* * *

**Chapter 19 – You've Earned a Rest **

Getting the bed from the Davenport farm had required Cooter to reveal to his friends that his homestead had been left undamaged. The mechanic hated for them to see that, but the Duke boys seemed genuinely happy for him.

"Besides," Bo had told him, "It leaves you free to help us. And we're really grateful for that, ain't we Luke?"

"You got that right." And there was no sign of jealousy or anger in either of the Dukes' eyes. It almost brought Cooter to tears, but the mechanic shook them off. Something about this hurricane seemed to be making them all turn into a bunch of weepy girls.

Finally relenting in his desire to allow no one but himself and Bo enter Jesse's room, Luke let Cooter help them move the bed in there, since it involved the awkward process of getting around two tight corners. Besides, the bed was the last thing to go into place, since the Duke cousins had already put the rest of the room back as close to the way their uncle had left it as they could. After they'd plopped the mattress that Luke had tried to use to cover the living room windows what seemed like forever ago onto the top, Cooter stepped out and let his friends make their uncle's bed.

"Looks good, cuz," Bo said quietly, lightly placing an arm around the shorter boy's shoulders.

Luke said nothing, but his cousin could feel him sigh.

A close inspection still revealed that the room had been invaded by the elements, but it was certainly much better than it had been the morning after the hurricane. Where there had once been a window was now solid wall; the boys hadn't been able to put everything back the way it once was. But the room would be inhabitable, which was a good thing, because Jesse and Daisy were going to make another attempt to get back to Hazzard tomorrow.

In the phone calls that had followed that first one, the boys had described to Jesse what the family's losses had been. They uncle hadn't been exactly happy, but he had been insistent that the boys not worry too much. Luke figured he'd react that way, but the old man hadn't seen the mess yet. For all that he could be calm from a distance, Luke knew that seeing the disaster that the farm had become would be hard on the old man.

"He'll be happy with it, Luke," Bo said, trying to get his cousin to relax.

With a nod, Luke allowed himself to be led from his uncle's bedroom, but his heart remained heavy. The old man had entrusted him with the house, the farm, the livestock – everything the Dukes owned. And the patriarch would probably barely be able to recognize any of it when he arrived in less than twenty-four hours.

When they were little, it had been obvious to Luke that he and his younger cousins had different things that they dreaded. Bo couldn't tolerate for his uncle to be angry with him, which was unfortunate, because the blonde had a knack for provoking that very emotion with his impulsive ways.

"Don't you ever think, boy?" had been the refrain of his childhood. And, not thinking, the foolish little tow-headed boy would often answer back, prompting more anger.

Daisy could never stand to see sadness in the old man. Even when her own father had passed away, it seemed like she was trying to cheer her uncle up every bit as much as he was trying to take care of her. Later, when their aunt had died, the young girl had done everything she could to fill the gap that his wife's passing had left in Jesse's life, teaching herself to cook and clean in exactly the manner that Lavinia had. Daisy'd also been their uncle's anchor when Luke had been sent off to Vietnam.

Luke, he could face down anger. He had a ton of spunk, even when he was small, and his uncle's blustering only made him straighten his back and face the consequences like a man. The boy pretended to turn a blind eye to the older man's sadness, so he wouldn't have to feel it himself. What Luke could never tolerate was for his uncle to be disappointed in him.

_He was nine the first time he brought home a failing grade. The subject had been math, something the little boy usually excelled at. Fractions were a new concept, and while Luke was usually intrigued by such things, he really couldn't bring himself to be interested in "parts of a whole." He didn't want parts of things, he liked the whole thing. So he didn't care how many pieces of pie would be left over after Jane had two and Mary had three. He wanted to know why Jane and Mary were so greedy in the first place, eating so many slices of pie. _

_It probably had more to do with his age than anything. Luke was just discovering true peers for maybe the first time. Playing with Bo was all right, even fun most of the time, but his little cousin wasn't as fast or coordinated as the boys in Luke's fourth grade class. And those boys didn't care about fractions, either. They, like Luke, preferred baseball and basketball and football and the wildest game of all, "kill the ball carrier." Only elementary school kids would be foolish enough to engage in that game. _

_So Luke hadn't bothered to learn fractions, and when the test came, he'd failed miserably. The teacher had insisted that anyone with a failing grade had to take their test home and get it signed by a parent or guardian (Luke always hated that last word, which he was sure the teachers had invented simply to refer to the Duke kids) and bring it back the next day. _

_An outwardly unrepentant Luke had placed the test in front of his uncle, and resisted his guardian's attempts to talk to him about it. _

_"It was a hard test, Uncle Jesse. All the kids did bad on it." _

_"Sit down, Luke," Jesse had told the fidgeting boy. _

_"But Uncle Jesse, the guys are waiting for me. They don't have even teams without me." _

_"Then they're going to have to play with uneven teams, 'cause you're not going out there today." _

_"Aw, Uncle Jesse." _

_"_Sit_, boy!" Luke sat. "We ain't gonna talk about how the other kids did on this test. Do you know why?" _

_"No, sir," his oldest answered, dangling his foot around the chair leg. _

_"Sit still. We ain't gonna talk about how the other kids did, 'cause it don't matter none. The only kid in your class whose grades I care about are yours." _

_"Yes, sir." Luke started to fidget again, but a stern look from his uncle reminded him not to. _

_"You be honest with me now, Lukas." _

_In spite of himself, the little boy squirmed. His aunt and uncle rarely used that name, and unlike his youngest cousin Bo, when they did use it, it wasn't with affection. _

_"Did you do the best you could have on this test?" _

_Luke opened his mouth then shut it. The look in his uncle's eyes broke right through the tough veneer that the little boy had been projecting until now. Looking at his hands, Luke answered, "No sir." _

_"I'm very disappointed in you, Lukas." _

Those were the words that could make the oldest Duke cousin come apart, even all these years later. His uncle hadn't called him by his full given name since that summer after he'd graduated high school, before he'd become a Marine. But Luke expected to hear it from him tomorrow, when the old man got a good look at his property.

* * *

They were still without electricity, but thanks to Cooter, the Dukes had plenty of gasoline for their generator. Until this point the boys had used it sparingly, but today they had run the machine for most of the day, cleaning themselves and the house for the arrival of their kin. The boys had come pretty close to full beards in the two weeks since the storm, and with the cold water and no one else around to care what they looked or smelled like, they hadn't showered as often as they usually would. But now the two wild men were taming themselves for the company of a lady, even if it was just their cousin. 

Cooter had stayed in town, since he honestly didn't know a lot about making or keeping things clean, so it was just the two cousins for the first time in days. They'd scrubbed and shaved themselves, and now Luke was scouring the kitchen while Bo did his best with the living room.

"I don't know why we're doing this, Luke. Daisy's just gonna come in and redo it anyways."

"Maybe so, but if she does, it'll be because she chose to, not because she had to. I don't want either of them bein' overwhelmed by what this place looks like."

Luke's nervousness was starting to wear off on his cousin. Until today, the youngster had been looking forward to his uncle's return. Now he wasn't entirely sure that it was a good idea for the old man to come home. What if he got too excited when he saw that the farm didn't have a barn anymore? Would he get chest pains, seeing the exposed boards where the porch had once been? And when they took him out to see the crops, would he have a heart attack right there on the spot?

Reading the anxiety on his younger cousin's face finally brought the other Duke boy back to himself.

"Come on, Bo. There ain't nothin' more we can do in here. Looks as good as it's gonna."

Two tired boys put away their sponges and mops and headed for the front porch. Sitting there, the Dukes could not see all the progress they had made in cleaning up the debris, they could only see what still needed to be done.

At the sound of an engine in the distance, Bo jumped up and bolted past his cousin to greet the incoming vehicle. Recognizing the gleam of white under the heavy coat of mud as the pickup approached, Bo let out a holler, fears forgotten. The vehicle had barely stopped when his slender cousin jumped out and straight into his arms.

"Daisy-girl, you are such a sight for sore eyes, darlin'."

"Aw, Bo. How you boys doin'?"

"We're all right," he answered, placing her on the ground and turning to grab onto his uncle.

"Uncle Jesse…" he whispered, words caught in his throat.

"Easy, boy, easy," the old man responded, but he wasn't exactly going easy on his youngest, holding him tight enough to crack a few ribs.

"Hey," Luke had come up quietly, hands in his back pockets, looking down. Daisy would have none of that, jumping on him in such a way that he was forced to catch her and hold on.

"Hey, yourself," she said cheerfully. "Missed you."

"Hi sweetheart," Luke answered, softly. He put his female cousin down and turned towards where Jesse was still holding Bo. With all the strength in his being, he forced himself to look into his uncle's dark eyes.

The old man said nothing, just opened one arm and invited Luke to join the embrace. The brunette stepped forward, laid his head in the crease where Jesse's neck met his shoulder and breathed deeply and carefully. To his right he could feel Bo shaking, so he put one arm around his cousin and the other around his uncle, letting Bo do the crying for them both.

"My boys," Jesse whispered. "My sweet boys."

"Welcome home, Uncle Jesse," Luke muttered into the old man's collar.

* * *

After dinner, Jesse took a tour of the property with his children. There was no question that the family was in deep trouble, and the patriarch wasn't denying that to himself or his charges. But he was also trying to make clear to them that the most important thing was their safety, and that while they'd suffer without the crops, they'd be all right so long as they had each other. 

Daisy was a lot less philosophical, gasping as she saw each new broken tree, biting her lip at the sight of the missing barn and porch, then finally crying over the barren crops. Luke stayed at her side, gently comforting her with each new revelation of the damage they had incurred, leaving Bo closer to the calming presence of their Uncle Jesse. This was the normal pattern of their lives, the way the four of them tended to distribute themselves in times of crisis. But this evening as they headed back to the farmhouse, it felt all wrong to the youngest Duke cousin.

Waiting for his moment, Bo grabbed the opportunity to talk to his uncle while Luke and Daisy went to check on the livestock.

"Uncle Jesse?"

"Yes, Bo?" The old man was sitting at the kitchen table, watching the setting sun as it shone straight into the house. When he'd left here, there had been a lot more foliage, and the light hadn't been quite this intense. Jesse was finding he liked it, though, since it brightened up the old kitchen.

"Is it… does the property look better or worse than you imagined it would?"

"When you get to be my age you learn not to picture stuff like that in your head, son. You just wait until you can see the real thing."

"Okay, but you must have had some idea of how bad it was. Is it as bad as you thought?"

"What's this about, Bo?"

He hated to do this, but Bo knew his cousin wouldn't do it for himself. With a sigh, the blonde gave in.

"It's Luke, Uncle Jesse. He ain't been right since the hurricane. Oh, he ain't sick or nothin'," he hastened to add, when his uncle looked slightly alarmed. "He's just… He's taking it all so hard. I mean, we both did, but Luke still is, you know? I think – he just needs to know that you really are all right, that you really think we'll work it out. He's been workin' so hard…"

Jesse smiled and patted his nephew's hand, signaling that the boy could stop fumbling for words now.

"I'll spend some time with him tonight. And Bo?"

"Yes sir?"

"Come here." Both men stood so Jesse could gather his youngest into his arms.

"Thank you for taking such good care of your cousin."

* * *

"Luke, can you come in here a minute?" his uncle called from his bedroom. 

Steeling himself, the oldest Duke cousin got up from the couch, and without noticing that he did so, placed a hand over his stomach. Bo wanted to reassure him, but there was no time to do so, as, with a deep swallow, the brunette headed down the hall.

"Close the door, boy," Jesse said.

Luke did as he was told.

"Well, come here," his uncle said, worried now. His oldest looked like he was expecting to be taken over the old man's knee.

Luke sat on the bed next to the man who had raised him, and stared at a spot on the wall across from him.

"Luke, son, I want to thank you."

"Thank me?" His nephew seemed genuinely surprised.

"Yes, son, thank you. For making me go up to Nashville. Because if I'd stayed here, I don't think I could have taken as good care of the place as you did."

"Aw, Uncle Jesse, we lost the barn, the porch, the trees, the crops…"

"None of which you could have done anything about, Luke. But once that all happened, you went right to work, makin' sure it didn't get any worse. You took down the barn so's it wouldn't hurt no one. You cleaned up the trees and debris so it's safe to walk out there now. And you put my room back together so's I can hardly tell that it was open to the elements just a couple of weeks ago. You done good, Luke," Jesse said, pulling his stiff nephew towards him. "Relax, boy, you took care of the farm and your cousin real good. You've earned a rest."

His oldest let some of the tension out his shoulders, but not all of it.

"What's bothering you, Luke?" his uncle asked, gently.

"I didn't do none of those things Uncle Jesse. We… I didn't protect the house like we should have. And Bo, he got hurt."

"He don't seem hurt to me."

"Well he's better now, but…"

"Then it seems like he didn't get hurt too bad."

"It… it could have been a lot worse," Luke said, turning his head to face into his uncle's shoulder. "I… we, the second half of the storm…"

"Shh, Luke. You're both alive, and ain't neither of you seriously hurt. The house is in livable condition. That's more than I asked the good Lord for. I know you did the best you could."

And with that, the floodgates opened, and Luke gave up. Someday he'd have to tell his uncle just how much jeopardy he and Bo had been in during that long morning, but right now, he couldn't even talk. With his uncle's arms around him, Luke let himself cry.


	20. Stop Seeing What Ain't There No More

_Hey y'all - there's this line in the musical _Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat _that keeps running through my head:_

_"This would be a happy ending/perfect place to stop the show..."_

_And that's kind of how I felt after having brought Jesse and Daisy home. Except... there was that first chapter. So the show had to go on. So on it went - and it'll go on for a ways yet._

_Thanks to everyone who's been reading through thus far, and special thanks to those who sit for a spell and say a few words. I appreciate the feedback._

_I own nothing but the plot and the occasional original character. I earn zip, zilch, nada for the obnoxious way that I treat them all._

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**Chapter 20 – Stop Seeing What Ain't There No More**

With all four of them home now, some of the clean up process became easier. Jesse took Maudine out to the fields and plowed the cotton under. There was nothing to salvage there, but maybe, if they could scrape together enough pennies, they could get some winter wheat to put out there. Having the fields prepped now would be helpful if and when the time came to plant.

Daisy was grateful for the effort that her cousins had made to clean the house after so much water had invaded it. But they were boys, and hardly understood the meaning of the word soap, much less ammonia and other tools of the trade. The house had developed a good deal of mildew, and she spent her first days at home waging war against the stuff. The boys continued to take down trees that were already partially felled by the storm. They agreed that there were too many damaged oaks, elms and maples dotting the property to be able to get them all, but they'd take any that threatened the remaining structures on their homestead.

Bo was glad to see that Luke was mostly back to his old self. The two of them didn't talk much about the ordeal they'd been through, but it had left some new wrinkles on Luke's already deeply lined face.

And Luke found himself feeling a little better with each thing they managed to fix. As the Duke farm began to look and smell more like its familiar self, the oldest cousin felt less and less like he'd let the entire family down.

But there was still no money in the household, and it looked like there would be none coming in. Though the Boar's Nest had not been badly damaged in the hurricane, it hadn't been reopened yet, either. People were finally finding their way back to Hazzard, but not exactly in droves. And those that returned had no spare cash to spend on nights out, cavorting.

When they'd been home for a week, Jesse and Daisy took a trip into town to discuss the future of Hazzard with County Commissioner Hogg. Since the young woman's question was easier, she spoke first.

"When are you plannin' on reopening the Boar's Nest? If it ain't soon, I'm gonna have to go find me another job."

"Another job? Another job?" the balding man puffed around his cigar. "Why Daisy, there ain't no other jobs. Ain't nobody got nothin' open, 'cept the Busy Bee Café and Rhuebottom's, and ain't neither of them hirin'."

"Why, then I'll just have to…" Daisy started to threaten, but Jesse stilled her with a gentle grip on her upper arm.

"J.D., you're talkin' like a man that's happy that his county is fallin' apart at the seams."

"Fallin' apart… what are you talkin' about, Jesse Duke?"

"I'm talkin' about you sittin' there on your fat duff and sayin' there's no jobs instead of trying to create jobs."

"Create jobs? Why, I already employ more people than anyone else in the county," the commissioner growled, yanking his cigar out of his mouth and staring his once-friend, now-nemesis down.

"J.D., you know better than I do that an economy don't just happen. It has to be created! You gotta put money into it to get money back out. Like buying ingredients for 'shine. You pay for sugar, then you use it to make somethin' that someone's gonna wanna buy."

"Are you makin' 'shine?" Hogg asked, tilting his head to the side and puffing his jowls. "'Cause if you are…"

Jesse's voice went up a notch, even as his eyes popped. "No I ain't makin' 'shine, you old fool. I'm makin' sense is what I'm makin'. But you wouldn't know anything about that."

"Dat! Daisy, would you excuse us for a minute?"

"No, Boss! I want to know when you're gonna reopen the Boar's Nest!"

"Uh, Daisy darlin', why don't you go out there and talk to Enos for a little while. He seemed awfully glad to see you a minute ago," her uncle suggested, with a sly smirk.

With one more furious look at her employer, Daisy agreed. "All right Uncle Jesse. But only because _you_ asked me to." With a flash of angry blue eyes and flying chestnut hair, the young woman was gone.

"All right, J.D. Out with it."

"Jesse, I ain't got the kind of money it would take to put Hazzard right."

"J.D., you…" each syllable was carefully pronounced, but the Duke patriarch didn't get far.

"Now Jesse, I know you think I do, but I don't. Just look at all the businesses that closed down and ain't reopened. The hairdresser, the bakery, why even the junkyard… I ain't got the money to get them all started again."

"Well, it ain't all got to come out of your pocket!" Jesse snapped, treating his peer like the small child that he was imitating. "You know better'n that! You got to apply for Federal funds! Why, if there was ever a county in the state of emergency, it would be Hazzard!"

"I can't." The man in white's jowls sagged as he looked once again like the little boy who'd gotten caught all those years ago stealing the apple off the teacher's desk.

"Whaddya mean you can't? You just get the forms and fill 'em out. I know you can write J.D. We went to school together, you remember?" Jesse actually smiled at the memory. A young Jefferson Davis Hogg hadn't exactly been rich and powerful, but he'd always been crafty. And he'd never, ever been allowed to wear white. When he went home at the end of the school day, it was to a dirt floor shack, where there was more dust in the air than on the ground. White clothing would have gotten dirty before he could even put it on.

"Jesse, I…"

"Come on, J.D. They say confession is good for the soul, if you still got one."

"I done asked for emergency funds one too many times. You know that thunderstorm we had back in April, the one that came with hail?"

"Well, I suppose you could call it hail," Jesse chuckled. "Seems to me it was more like a few extra drops of hard rain. That the one you're talkin' about?"

"Yeah." The fat man looked like he had indigestion, though for a change Jesse hadn't seem him eat a single bite in the last five minutes. "I applied for Federal funds to clean up after that disaster. And they denied me. Said I'd made too many claims in the last five years and they wouldn't fund any more for at least another two."

"Two years? You're tellin' me we can't get federal money for two years?"

"That's what I'm sayin' Jesse."

"Well, J.D., you know as well as I do that we ain't had no emergencies here in Hazzard in the last five years. What do they mean, too many claims?"

"Well, you remember the locusts last year…"

"We didn't have no locusts last year."

"According to the paperwork I filed, we did. And then there was that blizzard in '77."

"Blizzard! Why J.D., you old sidewinder, we got maybe an inch of snow!"

"Uh huh, well, we still had to plow it. And I had to hire crews to put down rock salt."

"Put down rock salt! All that did was rust the cars!"

"Regardless, it was an emergency, and the government funded it." The commissioner's face arranged itself into a shape that could loosely be called remorse, but the Duke patriarch knew better. Hogg wasn't sorry for what he'd done, only for having gotten caught doing it.

"All right, all right, I get it. J.D., if this here county don't get back on its feet, there's no one that stands to lose more than you do. So… you got us into this mess, and you'd better figure a way out of it!" Jesse yelled, slamming a hand down on the commissioner's desk before turning to leave. Just as he reached the closed door, the Duke patriarch whirled around again. "And! You just open that Boar's Nest tomorrow night. Even if the locals can't afford to go there, there's still the long-haulers to serve."

With a sad little nod and drooping brown eyes, the county commissioner agreed.

* * *

"How'd the General look?" Bo asked around a mouthful of dinner, as Daisy and Jesse recounted their afternoon in town. 

"Oh, Bo," Daisy answered. "He looks just the same as you told me he would. Cooter feels bad about that, but there just ain't anyplace to get the axle right now."

"Especially for free," Luke said. "We can't even afford the twenty bucks it would take to get one from the junkyard."

"Things'll get better now that Daisy's goin' back to the Boar's Nest," Bo said with confidence. "Won't they, Jesse?"

"Well, uh, sure they will, Bo, sure. But not all at once." He didn't want to scare the boy, but the patriarch had to be honest. Whatever Daisy could bring in would help, but the family was in a great deal of trouble.

"No, they ain't gonna get better real soon," Luke complained. "Not with the way Boss has been squandering Federal funds."

"Now, Luke, we Dukes has never really depended on government funds in the past, and we ain't gonna start now. We'll just have to come up with our own way of dealin' with things. Bo, pass them turnips, and quit frettin'."

* * *

"Uncle Jesse, I need to ask you somethin'," his oldest said quietly. Daisy and Bo were in the kitchen sharing dish duty and giggling, while Jesse sat in his recliner. He hadn't seen Luke sneak up on him. 

"What's on your mind, boy?" Jesse asked, looking hard into his nephew's eyes for answers. Unlike Bo, Luke rarely sought his advice.

"I was thinkin'. You know, normally when we need money, me and Bo go and do some odd jobs here around Hazzard. But ain't nobody in Hazzard got money to pay us with."

"And even if they did, we wouldn't take it right now," Jesse cautioned him. "Not with everyone sufferin' after the hurricane."

"I know, I know. I wasn't suggestin' we would. I was just thinkin'…"

"Spit it out, boy."

"Jesse, you know what Marines is like. We take care of each other. We ain't just Marines for two years or four, we're members of the corps for life."

"You ain't thinkin' about reenlisting," Jesse said, his face a hard, cold no.

"Naw, nothin' like that. I was thinkin' about Jerry, my old bunkmate, who lives down in Valdosta. The storm barely grazed Valdosta, Jesse. I bet Jerry could help me find some work down there. Just for a spell. Just to get us through the winter."

"Now Luke, have you really thought this through?" Jesse wasn't ready to give an answer yet, not until he knew what Luke had in mind. But he wasn't going refuse outright, like he would have under normal circumstances.

"Not all the way, not yet. I mean, I have to call Jerry first and see if he can help, and if he can put me up, cause it ain't gonna be worthwhile if I gotta pay rent somewheres. But I didn't want to do none of that without talkin' to you, first."

"That's real mature of you, Luke. You call your friend."

* * *

Within a week, much to Bo's dismay, it was settled. Jesse was sending Luke to Valdosta with his blessings. The conditions of Luke's probation limited him from leaving Georgia, which he wasn't planning to do, but he needed permission to miss the monthly meetings with his probation officer, namely Boss Hogg. What seemed like a problem turned out to be easily resolved when the commissioner waived that little requirement for six months, saying that one less Duke in Hazzard would be a blessing. And if the man in white secretly felt that letting Luke go was actually the best thing he could do for the Dukes, he sure wouldn't admit it. Luke was packing. 

"Jesse," Bo implored. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Luke, he ain't really been right since the storm…"

Jesse sat his youngest boy down. "Bo, your cousin is a responsible boy."

"I know that, Uncle Jesse. I just think he's still blamin' himself for the things the hurricane did, things he couldn'ta stopped no matter what."

"I know, son. That's why I think he needs to do this. First of all, he needs to get away for awhile, stop seeing what ain't there no more: the porch, the barn, the trees. But second, he needs to do something to help. And earnin' will definitely be helpin'."

"But Jesse, don't you think he needs to be near his family?" Bo's sad, blue eyes tugged at his uncle's heart, but the old man stood pat.

"Normally, I'd say yes. But Bo, Luke's been away before. An' with him, absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder. He'll miss you every bit as much as you miss him," Jesse said, revealing his sympathy for the youngest of the clan. "And when he comes back, he'll be happier, because he's been able to help his family."

"I guess," Bo said, not really agreeing, but definitely realizing that Jesse's mind was made up.

"Besides, we ain't got no harvest, an' it don't look like we're gonna do no winter planting, neither. So it ain't like there's a lot of work for him to do around here. And that boy needs to be busy right now," Jesse explained, then quickly followed this statement with, "Oh, we got enough work to keep one of you boys busy, so don't even think about asking me if you can go with him. The answer to that is no."

Bo sighed and nodded. He had considered asking, but had already known the answer anyway.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Luke was packing his things into Sweet Tilly. The General was still at Cooter's, and would be for the foreseeable future, but Luke wouldn't have taken him anyway. Bo's natural instinct for that car made the stock car belong more to the younger Duke cousin than the older, at least in Luke's eyes. Bo helped him load the Tilly up. 

"Are you real sure about this, Luke?"

"No, I'm not. I'm just going to see what I can find down there. Jerry knows a mechanic that might need some help, and said he'd introduce me to the guy. But I don't know if it's gonna work," the brunette admitted.

"Then why go? Stay here. We'll figure something out."

Luke stopped his packing and put both hands on his cousin's shoulders. "Bo, I know what you're thinkin'. But this ain't like the last time I left, okay? I ain't joining the armed services, and I ain't going overseas. I'm just gonna be six hours away. And I'll only be gone through the winter at most. I'll be back for spring plantin'." Brilliant blue eyes stared into darker ones, begging them to understand. "I gotta try, Bo."

Remembering his conversation with Jesse, Bo nodded. "Just, be careful, Luke. And if you need me, you tell me, and I'll be there in six hours, okay?"

"You got it." The older boy pulled him into a hug.

"I love you Lukas," Bo's muffled voice came from the vicinity of Luke's shoulder.

"Ditto, Bo."


	21. Settling for Smaller Things

_Hey y'all - thanks to everyone who has been following this story all along. We are finally headed towards explaining that first chapter, but - psych! - not quite yet. Told ya this was a long one._

_So I appreciate you sticking it out and particularly thank those who comment. _

_I don't own any of them, but I do enjoy playing with them (she said, turning vaguely reddish). I don't earn anything for the fun I have!_

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**Chapter 21 – Settling for Smaller Things**

Those first few weeks without Luke had been strange. The Duke family was still waiting for their electricity to be hooked up again, not to mention the phones. So the oldest of the cousins had no easy way to contact home. They only found out that he had a job because he sent them his first paycheck. And they only knew he was all right because of the short note that accompanied the money, saying he was fine and hoped they were, too.

As September chilled into October, things improved for the Dukes that had stayed in Hazzard. Electricity resumed just as the cooler weather was starting to settle in and the days were getting too short to get as much done before sunset as the family would have liked. A week later, the telephone was hooked up. And between Luke's earnings and Daisy's, the family was able to pay the mortgage and purchase the lumber needed to erect a new barn. They'd opted for the new construction over winter wheat, knowing that protecting Maudine and the tractor through the cold months was a wiser investment in their long-term future.

Bo was kept very busy on the farm, what with being the only young, male body there, most of the time. Cooter still pitched in when he could, but Hazzardites were returning to town and the garage was getting slow but steady business. And if things ever seemed to slow down around the farm, Jesse found a project for his youngest. That boy needed to be kept busy or he'd wallow in missing his cousin.

The youngster kept thinking that Luke would come home any day. The brunette was just day labor at the service station in Valdosta, which meant that he could be out of a job at any time. And during the calls that they were able to make and receive from him, he professed to miss home. All of this gave his youngest cousin hope. But Halloween and Thanksgiving passed without him. The new barn was finally built, and Luke hadn't even seen it.

In December, the oldest Duke cousin had a surprise for them.

"I'm comin' home for Christmas," he told Bo, quickly pulling the phone away from his ear as the younger boy let out a holler. "Don't get too excited, cousin. I'll be there for Christmas Eve, but I gotta leave again on Christmas Day. Tom needs me here on the 26th so he can go away until New Years."

Bo sighed; he'd take what he could get. "But cousin? I want you to come home soon, to stay."

"I know you do, Bo."

* * *

The two weeks between Luke's announcement that he'd be coming home and the arrival Christmas seemed to take forever. With Jesse's permission, Bo had occupied himself by building a tiny back porch. It was nothing compared to the one they'd lost, but at least it was a stoop. He and his older cousin could sit there, if only for the one night. 

Daisy outdid herself, using all the sugar in the house to make cookies and pies that Luke might have the chance to get one slice of, and the rest of the family would be eating for a week afterward. And she made sure that for that day they'd have a turkey for dinner, even though the rest of them had eaten hardly any meat all fall. The family didn't have much, but they found ways to stretch what they did have just far enough to create a special celebration for their one day together.

Jesse watched his younger children preparing for Luke's arrival, and was reminded of Christmases when they were children. They'd rarely had much to spend on material gifts, but the kids had always been creative, both in what they gave and in the way they viewed the things they received. They'd never complained; they just found ways to be happy with what they got, even when it was only a toy car whittled out of a small tree branch. He hoped that one day with each other would be enough to give them the kind of joy they'd experienced with childhood holidays.

* * *

Holding Daisy back, Jesse let Bo run out to meet his cousin first when they all heard a car pulling into the driveway that Christmas Eve afternoon. 

"Give the boys a minute," he'd suggested to his only girl.

Luke was only halfway out of the car when his youngest cousin was upon him, half hugging, half tugging him out of the car.

"Lukas," the blonde whispered.

"Easy, Bo, those are my ribs." Well, there was no mistaking that this was Luke. No hello, no I missed you -- just, those are my ribs. Bo didn't let go, not one bit. He knew his older cousin expressed love in the oddest of ways. And in truth, Luke's arms around him were equally as tight as his were around Luke. Finally, Jesse and Daisy joined them for a group hug in the driveway. When they pulled apart, Luke caught sight of the barn, the new wood of its broad side a bright yellow-orange in the late sun's rays.

"It looks great, Uncle Jesse," he'd said. "Makes this place look like home again." His words gave them all a little hope. "Wish I'd been here to raise it with you," he admitted quietly.

"We couldn't have done it without you being where you was, Luke," his uncle reminded him.

With a sharp nod and a deep breath, the oldest Duke cousin headed for the trunk of the old black running car, but his uncle stopped him.

"You and Bo go look at the place while there's still light in the sky. Me and Daisy'll bring your stuff up to your room."

Bo smiled gratefully at his uncle, and led Luke to the barn.

"Don't worry, cuz, it wasn't exactly fun to build. You didn't really miss nothin'," Bo consoled him.

Luke's answer was something only his youngest cousin would really understand. "It's not that I thought it was fun, Bo. More like… after destroying two barns, I just wanted to be part of raising a new one, you know?" A large hand ran back through dark curls.

"I know, Luke. But like Jesse said, it wouldn't be here without you having been away." Bo had hated to admit it, but it was true after all. Besides, it allowed him to ask the question, the only question that really mattered. "When are you coming home for good, cousin?"

"Ah, Bo, the barn is one thing, but you know as well as I do that we got to have enough to pay the mortgage through the winter, plus buy seed in spring. I still gotta stay there and earn as much as I can."

Bo nodded sadly; it wasn't the answer he'd wanted. But they still had a day together, and the blonde wasn't going to waste it feeling bad.

"Come on, I got something to show you!" Bo grabbed Luke's hand and tugged him out of the barn.

With a chuckle, his oldest cousin followed. Sometimes it seemed that Bo had stopped maturing at the age of five, especially when he got excited like this. Following his youngest cousin around the house, Luke took a moment to look at the tree line, which was not as bad as he'd remembered it. Some of the leaning trees had either been taken down or had fallen on their own. While what had once been dense enough to call "woods" now seemed more like a few trees, at least they weren't leaning at drunken angles anymore.

"Ta-da," Bo said, gesturing to the small platform that now served as an exit to the back door of the old farmhouse. "It ain't exactly the porch it was," Bo admitted, his grin sheepish. "But we can sit on it and watch the sun go down."

Luke wanted to cry, but he swallowed the feeling down. He wasn't here to upset anyone, just to spend Christmas with his family. But this sad little thing that his cousin was so proud of nearly broke his heart. He didn't doubt that the blonde had worked hard on it, and the way Bo was looking at him told Luke that it was meant to be a present, just for him. The gesture was not lost on Luke. What pained him was the understanding of what it meant. The family would have to settle for smaller things from now on. Whatever they did, however they proceeded, they'd have to lower their standards. Instead of the grand southern porch that Jesse's father must have built, they'd have to content themselves with a small stoop. The hurricane had brought the Dukes to their knees, and they wouldn't be able to stand up ever again.

Bo sat and patted the stoop next to him in silent invitation. Luke made himself sit, but he had no words for his little cousin. He was too busy suppressing misery.

"What's it like in Valdosta, Luke?"

Great. He'd have to find his voice now. "Kinda like here, but bigger." That wasn't much of an answer, and he knew it.

"No, I guess I mean… are you happy there?" Bo was afraid of the answer now that he'd asked the question. He almost took it back when Luke answered him.

"It ain't about fun, cousin. I mean, it's all right, but it ain't like here. I ain't exactly fond of the city."

He hated doing this by bits, but Luke wasn't helping.

"Do you like living with Jerry, you know, like on your own with just a roommate?" He tried, only half successfully, to keep the earnest need out of his voice.

Luke stared out across the back yard. Bo had asked a tricky question. His answer would have to be honest and gentle, both.

"There are some things to like about it, yeah. Mostly there's less worrying. You don't gotta worry about keeping the place neat, don't gotta worry about manners. And then, you go to work, but at five or six, the day is done, and you don't gotta go back until tomorrow. It's not like a farm, where you're worryin' all the time about the crops and the livestock…" Luke trailed off, then suddenly remembered who he was talking to. Turning to look at his cousin, he saw wide blue eyes, slightly more moist than they should have been.

"But there's more downsides than upsides," he finally continued. "Like… I might not have to worry about work, but I'm always worrying about you all, how things are goin' here, whether you got enough to eat and all that. And since I don't see you every day, well, I guess I imagine that stuff's not going well. Plus… Jerry's okay. But he ain't you."

Bo's lips smiled, but his eyes didn't. He'd gotten the answer he thought he wanted to hear. But the seriousness with which his cousin spoke, and the lack of any happiness to his tone left his youngest cousin worried.

"Luke…"

"Come on, cousin. Jesse and Daisy must be holding dinner for us."

"No, they ain't. There's one more thing you and me gotta do before we can eat," Bo informed him.

"Don't tell me you saved your chores for me to do," Luke groaned, the first traces of a smile ghosting across his full lips.

"Naw, not like that. We gotta pick something up, in town."

"Ain't nothin' gonna be open on Christmas Eve, cousin. Why didn't you pick it up yesterday, whatever it is?" Luke shook his head. Bo never seemed to think things through.

"'Cause it wasn't ready yet. It is now, and yeah, we'll be able to get it," the younger boy snorted, mildly miffed.

Alerting their uncle to where they were headed, the boys piled into Tilly. It was almost dark now, but Luke could still see his surroundings pretty well in the stark winter twilight. These back roads looked better than when he'd last been on them. After they'd dried out, someone must have come along and filled in the ruts, because they were remarkably smooth. But the rest of it looked as sad and barren as it had the first time Cooter had brought them out this way after the hurricane. Luke knew it would take dozens of years for the trees to grow back, but every time he saw how few there were, he was somehow surprised all over again.

"Luke? You're quiet."

"And you're observant. Just lookin' at the scenery, I guess," Luke answered, semi-honestly.

As they reached the paved streets of town, Luke was grateful to see colored lights around the windows of the houses, and in the park at the center of Hazzard Square. The gazebo still hadn't been rebuilt, but the trees had been decorated.

"Okay, Bo, where we goin'?" Luke was behind the wheel, so his question wasn't idle.

Pointing towards the only business with a light on, the blonde instructed, "The garage."

"What's this about, Bo?" Luke asked, skeptical. He wasn't really opposed to seeing Cooter, the man who'd been one of his best friends for more than twenty years. But he'd only planned to spend time with his family on this trip.

"Just go."

Luke just went, and the boys alerted the mechanic to their presence by opening the door that had once been too warped to work well. Luke noted that their friend must have either fixed or replaced it. Another sign that Hazzard was getting back on its feet, he guessed.

"Lukas, you old son of a gun," Cooter greeted, followed by a bear hug. "I hear you're gettin' almost as good as me at fixin' cars. Gonna put me out of business?" he joked.

"Nah, I'm just doin' it for now."

Cooter looked at Bo. The Luke Duke he knew would have informed him that he was already a better mechanic than Cooter, and that he was only letting Cooter be the town grease monkey out of the goodness of his heart. Bo just shrugged.

"Well, I suppose y'all are here to see someone special."

Luke groaned. He didn't want to see everyone in town. He just wanted to get back home to his family, with whom he had a very limited amount of time to spend.

"Come on," Bo coaxed, leading Luke after Cooter towards the back door. Taking the boys out into the alley, the mechanic lifted a tarp to reveal the General Lee.

"Back on all fours," he explained to a slightly confused-looking Luke.

"But Cooter, we ain't paid for that axle, have we, Bo?"

The blonde didn't get a chance to answer.

"Found it in the junkyard. Only cost me fifteen bucks. Merry Christmas," Cooter grinned widely, showing the slight gap in his front teeth that certain women found endearing.

"But, you must have spent hours workin' on him…"

"Lukas Duke, if you won't let me give you a Christmas present, I promise you, I ain't never gonna forgive you," his oldest friend warned.

Hands up and voice tired, Luke said, "Have it your way. Thanks, buddy."

"Why don't you take him home, Luke?" Bo offered. "I'll drive Tilly."

"Okay," Luke agreed, without much enthusiasm. "You comin' to dinner with us, buddy?" the oldest Duke boy remembered his manners, and asked their mechanic friend.

"Nope. Got me a date. Besides, it's a night for family."

"Thanks, Coot," Luke said, genuinely grateful this time.

* * *

The Duke boys stayed up for half the night, talking. Bo kept thinking that he ought to be enjoying himself, and wondered why he felt so sad. Maybe it was because he knew Luke would be gone in less than 24 hours. And maybe it was just that he knew something was wrong with his cousin, but didn't feel like he should really ask. It was Christmas after all. He should be cheering the older boy up. Thing was, no matter what he tried, nothing seemed to bring out the old Luke. 

The family celebrated quietly, with only token gifts. They all understood that every penny that either Luke or Daisy earned should go towards necessities, not luxuries. The boys dug out their guitars and played quiet carols while Daisy and Jesse prepared the main indulgence of the day, the turkey.

Too soon for everyone's tastes, the meal was over and the light was already fading again.

"I got a long drive…" Luke said, and the family quietly nodded. Daisy and Jesse hugged Luke at the door, letting Bo help him carry his things out to Tilly.

Throwing the few items he'd brought into the trunk, Luke looked up into a double barrel of deep blue sadness.

"Stay, Luke."

"I can't, Bo, you know that."

"No, I don't know it. Stay. We'll figure out a way to pay the mortgage," the blonde pleaded.

"Even if that was true, cousin, I have to go back. Tom's expectin' me to open the place up tomorrow. He's already gone."

Bo was used to his cousin showing that kind of responsibility. He didn't like it right now, but it wasn't a surprise.

"Then… come back soon," the blonde said, throwing his arms around his older cousin and burying his head in the other man's strong shoulder so Luke wouldn't see him cry.

"Soon as I can, Bo," Luke answered, not minding one bit the warm tears that fell on his collar. "Soon as I can."


	22. Lucky

_Hey all - Let me just start out this chapter by saying, I am a bona fide, died in the wool, card-carrying, animal lover. I would never intentionally harm another living being. I even take spiders outside to live and be free. So what happens to the animal in this chapter, well, it happens in real life from time to time (I got the idea from someone telling me a similar story a lot of years ago). But I wouldn't wish it on any creature, okay?_

_Now that I've scared you all... well, I guess the last chapter _was_ sad, though I only half thought of it that way. Maybe because I know what's coming. These chapters get sadder for awhile so - just be forewarned._

_Thanks to everyone who has been reading all along, and special thanks to those who review._

_Sadly, the only thing I own in this chapter is Lucky..._

* * *

**Chapter 22 - Lucky**

It was January when Luke disappeared.

Bo got that letter, more like a note, that said everything and nothing and asked for Bo's forgiveness without explaining what Luke had done that needed to be forgiven. The minute he'd read the words, the blonde tried to call his cousin in Valdosta, only to be told by Jerry that Luke had gone without telling his Marine buddy his plans. Reluctantly, the youngster went looking for his uncle. Although the note was addressed to the Bo alone, his cousin must have realized he'd share it with their kin.

When his youngest showed him the letter, Jesse shook his head and called a family meeting, such as it was. The three Dukes that had stayed in Hazzard sat around the kitchen table comparing notes.

"He didn't say nothin' about this last time I talked to him," Daisy lamented. "I wish he had…"

"We all wish that sweetheart," Jesse said, squeezing both her slender hands with his large right one. "But did he say anything else, anything that seemed odd?"

"Nope. He ain't really said much any time I talked to him, honestly. He just asks how I am, and gets me to talk about whatever's goin' on at the Boar's Nest."

"What about you, Bo?"

The blonde surprised himself, not only with his answer, but the tone it came out in. "Only what I been tellin' you all along, Jesse! He shouldn'ta gone in the first place. He ain't been himself since the hurricane, and it wasn't gettin' better with him away like that! You shouldn'ta let him go!"

"Bo!" Daisy interrupted his rising voice, but Jesse stopped her with another hand squeeze and a sigh.

"Son, I know you're upset. And I know you never wanted Luke to leave. Maybe you were right, maybe not. Only Luke can tell us that, and he ain't here."

Bo was too riled up to stop. He stood, getting ready to storm away from the kitchen table. "I know he ain't here Uncle Jesse! I know…"

"Bo!" his uncle yelled, stopping him in his tracks. "You sit, now, before you can't sit for a week!"

The blonde's eyes smoldered, but he did as he was told. "Yes, sir."

"What I was gonna say is, now ain't the time for us to be arguin'. Not when we all need to stick together to figure out what happened to Luke."

"Yes, sir," Bo replied, genuinely contrite. "I'm sorry."

Jesse glowered at his nephew, just for good measure. The boy knew he was wrong, but he was going to have to learn how to control those impulses if he wanted his uncle to treat him like an adult. And Jesse wanted nothing more than to trust that his youngest had grown up.

"Don't make me regret this, Bo…"

"What?" the boy asked miserably, studying the many scars on the old kitchen table, put there by little boys that had a habit of being a touch too aggressive with silverware.

"I want you to go down to Valdosta and see what you can find out about Luke. See if you can't track him down."

The blonde's head dipped in shame. "Thank you, Uncle Jesse."

"And Bo? Some day you'll understand that not every crossroads you come to has a right way and a wrong way. Sometimes it's just two different paths to the same place."

Bo didn't know what his uncle meant by that, but he nodded anyway. He'd already said too much today.

"Yes, sir. I'd better get packin'," he muttered.

* * *

"Bo." His uncle found him sitting on the back stoop of a porch, shivering in the dark. "You got a pretty long drive in the mornin'. Ain't you up kind of late?" 

"I guess," the blonde mumbled. He'd packed a couple of days' clothes into the General, and was ready to leave at first light. Bo knew he ought to get to sleep, but he couldn't seem to make himself go inside. "I'm sorry about this afternoon, Uncle Jesse," he said miserably, not looking at the old man.

Groaning as he forced his portly body to a seat next to his youngest, Jesse put a gentle hand on the boy's knee.

"You and Luke know each other better'n most men know their wives." The old man chuckled. "Course, that ain't sayin' much. Anyways, for as well as you know your cousin, there's one thing you ain't never liked to admit about him. You'n him are different."

"Not much," Bo answered. "We grew up together, we like the same kinds of things. He's older, but that never seemed to matter a whole lot…"

"That ain't what I'm talkin' about," Jesse said, slowly settling his mind to the tale he was going to tell. "You remember that dog you kids kept for a pet when you was little?"

Bo shook his head with a quiet smile. "Lucky. Poor thing. He was the most misnamed dog, ever."

"Yep, bred to be a hound dog, but he had no sense of smell whatsoever, he was half deaf, and dumber'n any animal I ever met. We had no use for him, but you kids begged me to let you keep him anyways."

"He had those big, sad eyes. Daisy couldn't resist him."

"Seems to me you was the one lobbied hardest for him," Jesse said, lifting his chin so he could look down his nose at the boy in the moonlight.

"I guess," the blonde admitted, slightly embarrassed. "I kept thinkin' that he just needed someone to love him. And maybe if we loved him enough, he'd still find a way to be a good hound dog."

"That's just like you, Bo. Always hopin' for the best, even when you got no control over the outcome." The old man's smile faded. "An' I know you remember what happened to him, too."

Bo winced. No one knew why the dog had wandered so far; possibly it was to search for the children that loved him. He certainly didn't belong in the Kellys' south forty, which was in the process of being threshed. By the time the neighboring family's patriarch heard the yelp, it was too late. The Duke kids' pup had been badly injured by the heavy farm equipment.

"We begged you to take him to Doc Petticord, I remember," Bo said, the sadness of that long ago moment coming right back to him.

"I wished you kids had never seen him in that kind of pain," Jesse admitted. "All three of you knew what death was by then. But that kind suffering – that, you hadn't really been exposed to yet."

"I remember poor old Lucky, licking Luke's hand, even though that poor dog was hurting so bad. I guess we learned a little bit more about death that day." Bo shook his head, hard, trying to dispel the mental images.

"You know, I would never have called Lucky a graceful dog. But that day, he passed on with grace. And the three of you were miserable."

Though his eyes were a little misty, Bo couldn't help himself. "Did you come out here to cheer me up, Uncle Jesse? 'Cause it ain't workin'."

Shaking his head, the old man reminded himself of why he was talking about this in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Bo. But do you remember what happened after that?"

"You walked us home from the Kellys' fields, and I think when we got home, Aunt Lavinia gave us some ice cream."

"Well, she gave you and Daisy that, to distract you. We didn't need you gettin' any more upset than you already was. Your aunt was keepin' you two occupied while I went out lookin' for Luke. We was only about halfway home when he took off to runnin'. I brought you younger kids home, then went out lookin' for him. Looked all day, too."

"That's right, I forgot. He came home by himself after dinner, all dirty and scratched up. He'd been runnin' through brambles, but he didn't seem to feel 'em, he told me later," Bo shook his head at the memory.

"You and Daisy spent that day in the comfort of your aunt's arms, but Luke, he was nowhere to be found. An' even when your cousin came home that night, he didn't want no one near him. Your aunt had to force him sit down while she cleaned those scrapes." Jesse paused for a moment, remembering other struggles with his oldest charge. Luke always had been a challenge. "An' for the next few days, he was quiet. Oh, he'd talk to you kids, especially you, Bo, and put his arms around you when you was sad. But he wouldn't talk to me or your aunt at all. I thought he was mad at us, but now I know he wasn't."

"Naw, that's just Luke, he don't wanna talk much when he's upset."

"And that's my point exactly, Bo. It ain't just that he don't talk. It's more like he's some kind of a wolf or something. When he's hurt, he just finds him a quiet spot and goes and licks his own wounds. Not like you and Daisy, who come to me, or go to Luke, when you're feelin' bad."

"I don't always go to you or Luke," Bo countered. "I go off by myself, too." Ever since Bo was young, he'd admired Luke's way of taking care of himself, and Bo was pretty sure he had developed a similar style of dealing with things now that he'd grown up.

"Where do you go, Bo, when you go off by yourself?"

"Well, I go out to that little swimmin' hole a lot," Bo answered. It wasn't exactly a secret, he supposed.

"An' who always goes out and finds you out there?"

"Luke."

"Exactly, son. Even when you go off by yourself, you almost always go to the same place, a place you and Luke made for yourselves, and practically invite your cousin to come after you. And when he finds you, you stay put and talk to him. When Luke takes off, do you ever find him?"

"Well, most of the time I don't, but sometimes, yeah, I do."

"And when you do find him, is he happy to see you?"

"Not usually. Most of the time, he tells me to get lost. I hate it when he does that," Bo admitted.

Jesse chuckled. "Try raising a kid like that. Anyways, the point is, when Luke's hurting, he needs some time to himself. That's why I let him go to Valdosta, son. If it was you, I woulda made you stay. But your cousin, he usually comes around when you leave him alone."

"I suppose," Bo answered. There had been times when an obviously hurting Luke had opened up to his youngest cousin. But it wasn't often, Bo had to admit.

"But what's he doing this time, Uncle Jesse?"

The look in his youngest child's eyes broke the white haired man's heart. There was so much trust in this youngster. If Luke was hard to raise, there were ways in which Bo was an even greater challenge. Trying to keep such a trusting child from being hurt had taken every ounce of energy that he and Lavinia had, and as exhausted as the couple had been each night, they hadn't always succeeded. But Bo bounced back every time. Jesse cherished the way that Bo had of expecting good things from the world.

"I just don't know what he's up to, Bo. I wish I did." With a pat to his youngest child's knee, Jesse stood. "Come on, son. You need some sleep."

"Uncle Jesse," Bo said, not moving. "I'm sorry I sassed you this afternoon. I know you had your reasons for sending Luke."

With another grunt, the old man sat. "Ah, Bo. I don't know, maybe you were right. It ain't easy, trying to decide what's best for you kids all the time. All I'm trying to say is, if Luke didn't go to Valdosta, he might well have gone somewheres else. It's somethin' I learned a long time ago. When Luke wants to go, he goes. Of course, he's always come home before."

"I'll bring him home, Uncle Jesse," Bo vowed.

"I hope you will, Bo, but remember, if and when you find that boy, don't spook him. If'n you do, he'll just up and run again. Go at him real easy. But you don't need me to tell you that. You was always the one could get to Luke when none of the rest of us could." Jesse stood again, and put a hand on Bo's back, pressing firmly. "Now come on. You're off to bed, and no complainin'."

"Yes, sir," Bo answered, finally ready to come in. "I got a tough job ahead of me tomorrow."


	23. Luke Don't Lie

_Hey all - another bummer of a chapter. Don't blame me, I'm just the author. Oh yeah, right, that means you're supposed to blame me. But in my defense, the boys often don't do what I want them to. They seem to have minds of their own. And then I have to do everything I can to get them out of the trouble they've gotten themselves into. It's hardly fair..._

_Don't own 'em, can't barely even tell 'em what to do. And I sure don't earn from 'em!_

* * *

**Chapter 23 – Luke Don't Lie**

Bo wasn't a big fan of Jerry, the man who'd been Luke's host in Valdosta for the past few months. He supposed he ought to be glad that this man had let his cousin stay with him, but this Jerry guy didn't make it easy. He wasn't particularly pleasant.

"I told you, I don't know where he went. It ain't like he'd have any reason to tell me," said the bearded man who seemed a few years older than Luke. "He asked for a place to stay, and some contacts for a job. He didn't ask for me to nose into his business, so I didn't."

"Well, I understand that," Bo said, forcing himself to be as friendly as he could. Given his druthers, he might already have punched this bum right in his beer belly. "But, see, we're family, him and me, so his business is my business."

"Ain't got nothin' to do with me," the ever-charming Jerry answered with a grunt.

"Listen, I know you wasn't babysittin' Luke or nothin'. I ain't askin' that. I'm just wonderin' if he said or did anything that might give me some idea of where he went." Bo was hating every minute of this discussion, which was taking place in the narrow, well-worn, main hallway of a multi-family house, because Luke's friend hadn't invited the blonde inside to talk. Bo wondered how his older cousin had lived in this same structure with so many strangers. What would it be like to hear the sound of footsteps over your head, and not know who was making it?

"Your cousin don't say much."

"Nope, he don't." It was the first thing they'd agreed on so far, and it wasn't helpful.

"He's all right, though. If you was under enemy fire, he was the one you wanted at your side. He'd never leave anyone for dead." Jerry's slightly chubby face had darkened in a way that Bo recognized. The lines on Luke's face deepened in just this same way whenever he talked about Vietnam. "He ain't the same, though, back here. Out there, he knew how to have fun. Here, even when he had a few beers in him, he never laughed. He mostly got quieter."

This still wasn't helping Bo, and he had to stomp down the desire to yell at Jerry to just tell him what he wanted to know. But it seemed like this guy was just going to ramble at his own pace, and Bo suspected that prompting him would lead back to surly denials of knowing anything about Luke.

"Luke never was one to drink enough to get silly," Bo said, quietly.

"Maybe you don't know your family quite so well as you think," Jerry had the audacity to snort. "Sgt. Duke knew how to tie one on. Even now, he's still got that little skill mastered."

"Listen," Bo said, trying with every muscle in his body to hold back the anger that was ready to come screaming out of his mouth. "Was there anyone else he hung out with, someone who might know something you don't?"

Seeing that he'd gotten under Bo's skin, Jerry cranked it up a notch. "Nah, your cousin was more of a mind to drink alone, at home. You know, the kind of thing they say you shouldn't do, 'cause it leads to bigger problems..."

Bo's face was getting red. "Now, you just hold on a minute," he started, but Jerry just laughed.

"Man, what an easy mark you are. I don't know why Luke likes you so much. The two of you ain't nothing alike." Seeing that the anger, if anything, only grew stronger on Bo's face, the veteran Marine finally stopped tormenting him. "Okay, kid, okay. I really don't know where your cousin went, and it really ain't none of my business. The only thing I can tell you is that one day we was sittin' here, knockin' back a few cold ones. He wasn't happy, but then, he never was. Suddenly his eyes got bright for a second, he snapped his fingers, and said, 'I got it.' Next day he was gone. That's all I can tell you."

"He didn't tell you his plan, did he. He never does, not unless or until he has to," Bo grumbled, eyes down. He lifted them back to stare at Jerry, hard. "You coulda just told me that in the beginning."

"I coulda, but then I would have had nothing else to do all day. Now I can laugh at how mad you got for the rest of the afternoon. Aw, kid, you ain't that bad. Listen, go see Tom at the Tenth Street Chevron Service Station. He worked with Luke, maybe he knows something. Good luck findin' him, kid. He's a good guy." At least there was one thing that Bo and Jerry could easily agree on.

Bo's legs couldn't walk him out of that apartment house fast enough. The youngest Duke was an affable young man who liked his neighbors, but didn't think he'd be able to stand them if they lived that close. The only people he wanted under the same roof with him were his family, and Luke was the family member he wanted most.

* * *

Tom at the Chevron Station wasn't a whole lot of help, either, though he was at least friendly. 

"Luke talked about you, a lot. He said you were the best driver he'd ever seen," the graying city mechanic told him.

Uncharacteristically, Bo blushed. It was one thing to have a friend tell you that, or even a pretty girl. It was another thing entirely to hear that his older cousin had said it.

"Also said you were the best friend he'd ever had, as I recall," Tom added, causing Bo to have to shift his eyes away from the other man's warm, brown ones, quick, before Tom could see how much those words hurt him right now.

"And, he talked about this car you shared, the General Lee? I don't know, Luke always seemed real honest, but the way he talked about that car, and you behind the wheel… I thought maybe he had a little problem with tall tales."

"Luke don't lie," Bo said softly. "You can come see the General if you want. He's parked out front. Sorry I ain't got time to give you a ride in him, though. You'll just have to take his word for my driving," Bo finished, without enthusiasm. Normally he'd be dying to show this man what he was capable of, but right now he had a single-minded mission to find Luke, then wring his neck for making his younger cousin so miserable.

As the Duke boy took the remarkably grease-free mechanic out to see his and Luke's prized possession, he explained that he had come in search of his cousin.

"Well, I thought he was staying with Jerry Stelling, out on Manning Street. You could check there," Tom suggested.

"He ain't there. Jerry's the one told me where to find you. I thought maybe Luke said something to you, maybe gave you a reason why he quit."

"Oh, well, he didn't quit. I really only needed him through the holidays. This time of year, I don't see enough business to warrant paying another guy. So, I let him go. I just assumed he'd go home to you and the rest of his family. The way he talked about y'all, I was sure he'd…" By now the aging mechanic was starting to notice the way the blonde seemed to almost flinch whenever he heard how much Luke seemed to love him. Tom didn't understand the reaction, but decided to tone down his words.

"This here's the General," Bo introduced, popping to hood. "Told you Luke don't lie."

Tom's voice came wafting up at Bo from somewhere near the engine block. "You boys built this thing yourselves?"

"Yes, sir," Bo answered mechanically, without his usual pride. "From the ground up."

"Well, you're damn straight, Luke don't lie," Tom concluded. "It's pretty much exactly like he claimed." Pulling his body out of the half prone position it had been in, the suddenly paternal man added, "Bo, I hope you find your cousin. He's a fine man and a really good mechanic. I wish I could tell you more, but…"

"It's okay," Bo answered. "You told me enough. Thanks," he added, closing the General's hood and sliding into the driver's seat.

"Wait," Tom called. "Slow down a second, there. Why don't you tell me where to reach you in case I do hear from him?"

"Oh, yeah." In his hurry to get away from the kind man who'd accidentally made him so unhappy, Bo had forgotten to be practical. _Just like you_, he could hear Luke scolding, brilliant blue eyes twinkling. _Running off like a fox on the scent of a long-gone rabbit, instead of paying attention to the hare that's right in front of you. _Shaking his cousin out of his head, Bo gave Tom his contact information, said a pleasant good bye, and looked for the quickest exit from the heart of Valdosta. This city had not been kind to him today.

Without really meaning to, the youngest Duke found himself on Interstate 75, headed south. For a brief moment, he considered continuing in that direction into Florida. He was already pretty close to the border, and right now he didn't care whether he was breaking the conditions of his probation or not. But the youngster decided that two wrongs didn't make a right, and that disappearing from what was left of his family wouldn't help any of them. So he pulled off at a rest stop just north of the Florida state line, and called his uncle.

"Come on home, Bo," Jesse advised. "You've done what you can down there."

"But I ain't found him, Uncle Jesse," Bo said, voice cracking.

"I guess he don't want to be found. I ain't sayin' you should give up. But you should come home, just for now."

The blonde hated to admit it, but the old man was right. He could justify a few nights away from the farm if he had any idea of where to look. But there was no indication that Luke was still in Valdosta, and even if he was, it was a good sized and unfriendly city. Bo didn't know how to go about searching for his cousin there.

Hanging up the phone, Bo headed for the woods at the edge of the rest area. His blurry vision wouldn't allow him to drive right now, anyway. The youngster needed some privacy and the vegetation in the distance seemed much friendlier to him than any of the other places he'd seen today.

Crunching along on the dried leaves of barren trees, Bo wondered how his cousin could be these two different people, the man that talked about him all the time, calling the blonde his best friend, and the man that sent him a letter saying he wouldn't be coming home. There was no combination of behaviors that could have hurt the youngest Duke more.

Finally wiping at his cheeks, Bo gave up on clearing his eyesight. There was nothing for it. He'd have to drive all the way back to Hazzard with tears in his eyes.


	24. Chasing Shadows

_Hey all - yet another drag of a chapter. You know, when you split up the two of them Duke boys, it's like meetin' up with the business end of a skunk - everyone suffers for miles around._

_Thanks to everyone who has been reading all along, and double thanks to those who stop and say hello!_

_There's a lot of things in life that I don't own: a reliable car, a healthy houseplant, the Duke boys. All three would be lovely additions to my life, but I can't afford any of them, because I earn nothing from what I write here._

* * *

**Chapter 24 – Chasing Shadows**

The Dukes spent the next couple of months chasing shadows. The first time they got a money order from Luke, the family was floored by how much he'd sent them. It was easily double the amount he'd been sending them from Valdosta. Bo thought it might have been some kind of bonus that Tom had given Luke when he'd let the brunette go. Though he hadn't specifically mentioned such a settlement to Bo, it seemed like something the paternal mechanic might have done.

But more important to the youngest Duke than the amount of the money order was the postmark on the envelope. It had been sent from Apalachee, a small town that Bo could get to within a couple of hours drive. Looking up from the envelope to see his uncle's bearded face, Bo silently begged him for permission to go look.

"Ain't too many places that boy could hide down there," the old man mused. "All right, Bo, go find him and bring him home."

And his uncle really thought it would be that simple, but two days later, Bo was back, even more upset than he'd been when he returned from Valdosta. Jesse found him sitting on the back stoop. Placing gentle hands on Bo's shoulders, he tried to console the boy.

"He don't want to be found, Bo. You tried your best."

This wasn't what Bo wanted to hear. "Why _don't_ he want to be found, Jesse? Why wouldn't he come home?"

Sitting down beside his nephew, Jesse tried to answer him. "He's still hurtin', I guess. I can't say as I know exactly why. But it is just like him to run off when he's feelin' bad."

And a week later, the blonde dashed off on another wild goose chase, this time to Jasper, when they got yet another money order postmarked from there. It was a slightly larger town, but within a few days, Bo had exhausted his search of it. Besides, he knew he was needed at home. So once again he was forced to give up.

The depressed state in which his youngest came home from these trips made Jesse wonder if he should keep letting the boy go hunting for his cousin. But Bo was too old to held back by now. The old man had to face it: if his kids wanted to leave the farm, they were mature enough to do so. He just wished they would talk to him about it, not slip away like Luke had, and like the man who had raised them feared Bo might, any day now.

Jesse loved all the children he'd brought up. Daisy had been the easiest by far, and she held a special place in her uncle's heart. But there was something about his boys that brought youth back into the old man's heavy steps. Maybe it was the way they reminded him of his departed brothers. Maybe it was their spunk, or the way they had bonded together from a very young age. Whatever it was, on those days when Jesse's own honesty caught him unawares, he had to admit that the two of them were the most important aspect of his life.

Luke was gone, and life experience told Jesse that he might not return. He didn't know why the boy would do such a thing, and he sure didn't want it to be true. But he had to admit the possibility to himself. And he'd have to try to bring Bo to some kind of peace about that possibility. He couldn't let that boy keep chasing cold trails. It was causing the youngster too much pain. Bo's own usually optimistic outlook was working against him at this point, letting him believe each time that he'd find his cousin, only to drive the stiletto of loss deeper into him with every failure.

"Bo, we need to talk about Luke."

"Why? Did we get another money order?" the blonde asked, looking across the kitchen table at him with indigo eyes full of hope.

"No, son, though I am sure we will soon, and it could be from anywhere."

"Wherever it comes from, I'll just have to get there quicker than I been gettin' places so far. I'll keep the General stocked so I can leave right away…"

"Bo," the wise old man said softly. "Think about it. Even if you leave the minute we get it, Luke's gonna be two days ahead of you, at least. It takes that long for the mail to come here from wherever he's sent it."

"He's gotta be stayin' somewhere, Uncle Jesse. He's earnin' money somehow," Bo countered.

"I suppose that's true, but where he's sending the money orders from is obviously not the same place that he's stayin'. Boy," he added, gently, quietly. "Luke don't want you to find him." The old man watched pain grow in the lines of his youngest charge's face, as the words began to sink in.

"I don't believe that, Uncle Jesse. I believe he's hurtin', and he's tryin' to be alone for now. But I will never believe that Luke don't want me to find him," Bo said, his voice rising.

"I'm sorry, Bo," Jesse tried to explain. "I maybe said that wrong…"

"Maybe you did. Maybe you meant it. I don't know. The only thing I know for sure is, Luke ain't hiding from me. Whatever he's running from, it ain't me." The accusation in Bo's voice was a dagger in his uncle's heart. He'd only meant to try and spare the boy from the pain of searching for and not finding his older cousin. Somehow, in the effort, he'd hurt his baby boy even more.

"Now Bo, it did come out wrong, because that's not what I was tryin' to say…"

"Never mind, Jesse," the blonde said, getting up and heading for the door. "I'm goin' for a walk."

* * *

Daisy alternated between missing her older cousin and wanting to kill him. But honestly, she couldn't concentrate too much on Luke, what with trying to keep the other two men in her family calm. Both of them were apt to fly off the handle with the slightest provocation. Bo, uncharacteristically, maintained a surly disposition, day and night. He did his chores and helped her in the kitchen, but his sweet smile and matching personality were missing. And the family chatterbox had clammed up, speaking when asked a direct question, but hardly any other time. 

Daisy was more worried about her uncle. His failed attempts to ease Bo's pain seemed to age him before her very eyes. And in trying to take care of his youngest child the best way he knew how, the patriarch was denying his own sadness at Luke's absence.

The worst days were the ones when Luke's money orders would arrive. Bo would jut his chin and announce that he was on his way to McIntyre or Luthersville or whatever the postmark was on the envelope, and Jesse would gently try to tell Bo that he wouldn't find Luke there. The blonde would be gone for a day or two, then he'd return, silent, sullen, sad. It got to the point that Daisy wished her oldest cousin would stop sending money to them. It was true that they needed it, and that without it, they would probably have to forfeit the farm to Boss Hogg, but the weekly upheaval in what remained of her family hardly seemed worth it.

During those stretches of time between payments from Luke, Bo would often disappear for at least part of the day. Daisy worried at first, but wherever he went, he was always in bed by the time she returned from her shift at the Boar's Nest. At least she didn't seem to need to worry about him vanishing altogether like Luke had.

If Daisy could get her hands on her oldest cousin right now, she knew she'd go for his neck. She just wasn't sure whether her next action would turn into a hug, or a wringing.

* * *

_Early Spring, 1980_

The first warm spell of spring had come and gone, taking that early hatch of spring peepers with it upon retreat. The last two times they had gotten money orders from his oldest cousin, Bo hadn't bothered to go looking for him. He wasn't giving up on finding Luke, just on that particular method. His cousin had been gone for more than two months, and trying to track him down based on postmarks was getting Bo nowhere.

In the meantime, he and Jesse seemed to have called a silent truce. By now Bo had cooled off from the initial anger he'd felt at his uncle's words, and he knew that Jesse hadn't meant to hurt him. Just like Bo had, time and time again, his uncle had spoken carelessly, without thinking his words through. Now that the pain had receded, Bo could easily forgive the man who had raised him. In fact, the only bone of contention between the two them now was that while Bo was no longer chasing shadows, he still had every intention of finding his older cousin. Jesse still thought he was only setting himself up for disappointment, if Luke didn't want to be found. But they stopped arguing over it. They loved each other too much to keep hurting one another.

The youngest of the Duke cousins was cleaning Maudine's hooves in preparation for spring planting. Just as they had done every spring of Bo's life, the Dukes would plant using a combination of machine-power and Maudine-power, and the ground was nearly warm enough to begin. The youngster was using the pick and almost instinctively nickering back at the animal as he worked. Maudine could be a stubborn creature, but right now, with Bo, she was a calm and soothing presence.

"Hey, buddyroe." Startling both man and beast, Cooter's voice was not exactly suited for the quiet moment it had interrupted.

"Cooter," Bo whispered pointedly, "Don't be sneaking up on a mule when someone's holding onto her hoof!"

"Sorry," Cooter answered as Bo released Maudine's leg, patted her flank, and walked closer to his friend.

"What you doing out here, buddy? Ain't you got enough business in town to keep you busy? If not, I'm sure Uncle Jesse'd be glad to put you to work…"

"Naw, I ain't here to help out today, leastwise, not in that way," his friend answered. "Came to help you in another way."

"How's that, Cooter?" Bo asked, taking a seat on a bale of hay and inviting his friend to do the same, across from him.

"Well, you know that ol' L.B.'s livin' over in Sweetwater now," Cooter said, referencing his wild, younger cousin. Like most of the children that the Dukes had grown up with, Cooter had what they called 'normal cousins,' or the kind you didn't live with all the time. The Duke cousins were not the only ones in the county who'd been raised like siblings, but they were some of the very few. Cooter's cousins lived in certain of the neighboring counties, and visited Hazzard a lot, but they weren't raised there.

"Yeah? How's he doin'?" Bo said, remembering his manners.

"He's fine. Had him a tow out there at the northwestern corner of the county yesterday, out by Cooper's Gap."

"Cooper's Gap? I didn't know anyone lived out there. Guess whoever it was that needed the tow was lucky L.B. happened along," Bo chuckled. There was nothing out that way but a lot of rocks, dirt and trees decorating the sides of small but steep and tightly packed mountains.

"Seems L.B. wasn't the first one to happen on him. He was a skinny, young, college kid, no head for cars. But he told L.B. that another guy had stopped to help him, a young, dark-haired man. Said the guy popped his hood and told him he had a blown head gasket. Told him, 'Ain't nothing you can do but let 'er cool down, then take 'er straight to the mechanic in town. He'll take care of you.' Said the guy gave him directions and then got into a big old black Ford and drove off. Before the car had cooled off, L.B. happened by and towed him in."

"Dark headed guy driving a black Ford?" Bo asked, barely daring to hope.

"The guy knew what he was talking about, too. L.B. says it was the head gasket. So L.B. asked the kid for a better description of either the guy or the car. Kid don't know nothing about cars, but the guy, well he was about six foot or so, muscular, with full head of wild, curly brown hair. He said the guy looked a little rough around the edges, but he was very polite-spoken and helpful," Cooter finished meaningfully. "I don't know Bo, but Cooper's Gap ain't that far away. It wouldn't be hard to check out. You want me to do it for you?" The mechanic was one of the few people outside of the immediate Duke family who knew just what Bo had been going through for the past couple of months.

"Naw, Coot, I don't want you to spook him."

Cooter answered with a semi-pout, "I ain't that scary."

"Well, you are, but that ain't what I meant," Bo allowed himself a small smile. "I'll go check it out. I'll be okay either way," he said, as much for himself as his friend. "Do me a favor, though? Don't tell Jesse or Daisy. If it's him, I'll surprise them by bringing him home. If it ain't, they don't gotta feel bad again, okay?"

"You got it buddy. An' Bo, don't get your hopes up too high, okay? I almost didn't want to tell you about this…"

"I'll be all right, Cooter, thanks," Bo said, giving his friend half the grin he was capable of.

* * *

Bo found his uncle walking the fields, checking the soil for moisture and readiness to receive the seed they'd purchased with Luke's money orders, and stored in the barn. 

"What're you doing out here, young man? Though you was seeing to Maudine," Jesse scolded.

"I was. She's ready when you're ready. When are you thinkin' of starting?"

Picking up a small amount of the soil, sniffing it, then contemplating it before letting it run back out through his fingers, the old man did some kind of mental calculation that his nephews had never understood. "Ten days. Two weeks at most."

"Uncle Jesse?" Bo swallowed before speaking again. "What if I went campin' for a week before we start? If I left tomorrow, I'd be back in plenty of time…"

"Campin', huh? You mean lookin' for Luke, don't you," the old man stated, more than asked.

"Yeah, I'd look for him while I was out there," Bo admitted. As long as his uncle didn't force him to reveal too much, he could go searching for his cousin without provoking more unhappiness in the household. "But campin', well, I could stay for awhile. I wouldn't have to worry about money. An' even if I didn't find him… I wouldn't be here, upsettin' you and Daisy."

"Oh, Bo. You know your cousin and I just want you to be happy," Jesse reminded him.

Bo let out a hard little laugh. "I think that's the problem, Uncle Jesse. We all want each other to be happy, or at least less unhappy. And somehow all of us trying to make each other be happy just makes things worse."

Jesse nodded, biting his tongue on the reminder that he'd been about to give Bo, about how if Luke didn't want to be found, Bo wasn't likely to be successful.

"Well, son, you're old enough now to make the decision about whether to go or not for yourself. I ain't gonna tell you yes or no," his uncle told him. "But I am gonna ask – ask, not tell – you to come back in a week so's you can help me plant. Ain't no way me and Daisy can do it alone."

"Thank you, Uncle Jesse," Bo whispered as he melted into the arms of the man who had nurtured him for as long as the youngster could remember. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Bo," the old man said, holding on that extra few seconds before letting his younger nephew go.


	25. Worse Than a Slap Across the Face

_Hey all - I'm going away later in the week, so this may be my last post for several days. Then again, I may squeeze in one more. Either way, at least you get some answers in this chapter, so I won't leave you totally hanging. _

_Thanks for sticking with me through this dissertation._

_Don't own 'em, don't earn from 'em, don't mean 'em no (real) harm._

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**Chapter 25 – Worse Than a Slap Across the Face**

Cooper's Gap was beautiful country. Had the slopes of the closely tucked mountains been less steep, the area would likely have long ago been turned into some kind of a tourist haven with tidy cabins around the icy lakes that reflected back out of the small valleys. The area was too rugged for long-term human habitation though, so it remained largely wilderness. Bo didn't know it well, but he figured that in the span of a week he could hike the lot of it and at the very least have a pleasant vacation before settling into another growing season.

At least, that was what Bo admitted to himself, even as he strained every sense he had in the search for his cousin. The blonde had decided that one of three things was possible. The first option was that the man who had stopped to help the college kid was not Luke at all. Bo chose not to think about that alternative. Another prospect was that the guy was Luke, but he was just passing by on his way to who knew where. Again, this was an idea that the blonde didn't concentrate on. The third possibility, and the one Bo chose to believe, was that Luke had found some obscure place in the dense woods of Cooper's Gap, and that was where he was staying. An abandoned fishing cabin would do the trick; his cousin didn't exactly require luxury. And if there was someone managing to make a life in these woods, Bo would be able to track the signs, looking for disturbed vegetation, sniffing the air for wood smoke, listening for the sound of animals scattering in the presence of a human. In other words, he'd need to be on full alert. Day one was spent acclimating himself.

On the second day, Bo stuck to the valleys, scanning up and down steep hillsides, skirting around lakes. By late afternoon, he'd explored a large chunk of the lowlands, where the sun rose later and set earlier. It was still light, but wouldn't be for long, when Bo began to look for a good place to make camp for the night. He'd been carrying a relatively heavy pack with enough food in it to last a week, his compound bow with its quiver of arrows, a sleeping bag and some clothes. He was making this trip without the benefit of a nearby automobile. Cooter's cousin had dropped Bo here, keeping the General locked up in his garage. They'd meet again in a week at the designated pickup point, unless Bo somehow made his way back to town before that time, by hitching a ride.

Finding a level and dry spot, Bo shed his pack and began to search for some good sized stones and dry wood to make a fire circle with. Before he'd gotten far in this process, Bo stopped and stiffened, sniffing the air. Someone else had a fire going out here, somewhat east of where Bo was, judging by the way the wind had just changed direction. And, mingled with the wood smoke was a familiar acrid odor. Shouldering his pack and checking the skies for the thin stream of discoloration, the blonde set off on a course that would take him around the lake that he'd been about to camp next to.

As he made his way around the southern tip of the water, Bo had narrowed down the exact location that the smell must be coming from. The mountain on the east side of this lake was very steep, dropping almost directly into the water, except for one small hollow. It was a perfect setup, with only one narrow entrance as a person approached from the south. Bo began watching for the items he knew he'd find. He was pretty sure he didn't want to startle whoever was back here, but he did have to know.

Close enough now that there was no mistaking the smell in the air, Bo began watching the ground around his feet. The late afternoon sun's reflection revealed exactly what the youngster expected to find, a low length of fishing line, stretched between two trees. Looking to his left, Bo could see the tin cans and glass bottles that were strung on the line, half hidden in some ferns.

"Takes one to know one," he muttered, pausing to decide just how safe his next few steps would be. Finally stepping over the trip wire, Bo mumbled once more, "Hope he ain't got a quick trigger finger."

Very quietly, he stole closer to what he knew would be an active still, currently cooking up a batch. He just hoped the resident moonshiner wouldn't be the jumpy sort. Now on even greater guard than he had been a few minutes earlier, Bo alternated between watching low for more trip wires, and glancing up, hoping he wouldn't find himself looking into the barrel of a rifle.

And, on one of his upward scans he found himself staring down something even more frightening: a pair of startled, but still brilliant, blue eyes.

"Bo!" The voice was harsh, but the body language resigned. "What the hell are you doin' here?"

The frustration of the past few months left the younger of the Duke cousins a lot less than submissive. "Don't you think you should be answering that question, instead of asking it? You disappear for more than two months, making the whole family miserable with worry about you, and it turns out you're here? I can't believe you, Luke Duke."

"Bo!" Luke's response was whispered, but intensely. "Shh. Just get lost now, you hear?"

This was too much for the youngest of the Duke clan. He'd done nothing but miss his cousin for what felt like several lifetimes, and now that he'd found the other boy, the response was to tell him to get lost?

"I'm not going to hush, and I ain't gettin' lost, cousin…"

"Would you pay attention to your surroundings for once? What is this thing, right here, in between us?"

"A still," Bo spat, through his gritted teeth.

"And what happens if you get caught here?"

"If either of us gets caught here, Luke. I ain't the only one on probation for this very crime."

"I know that Bo," Luke said, his own voice starting to rise. "I know that! Why do you think I don't want you here? Why do you think I didn't even want you knowin' what I was doin'? So's if I got caught, you would actually be able to say you knew nothin' about it! So they couldn't take you, too."

Finally pausing long enough to get a good look at his cousin in the fading sunlight, Bo was taken aback. Though the color of Luke's eyes was as bright as ever, the circles beneath them made them seem unusually deep set. His face was gaunt, like he hadn't been eating well, and he had wild hair with a full growth of beard, which looked as filthy as the rest of him. Somehow his cousin had become the very impersonation of some of the less than sane mountain man 'shine makers that they'd known growing up in moonshine country.

"Lukas," he worried, his tone much softer now than it had been a moment ago. He didn't even try to say more.

"Aw geez, Bo," his older cousin said, turning and walking to an older, broken tree, half-resting on the ground, not far from the still. Luke sat, not looking at the younger boy. "Why'd you have to come looking for me?"

"Why?" Bo was riled again. "How can you even ask me that? You was raised by Jesse Duke, same as me. You know that family is more important than anything!"

Luke nodded, then looking spooked again, he said, "Bo, you've got to get out of here. Go! And… forget you ever saw me. I won't have you going to prison for this…" Luke's worried eyes, peeking out from under the mop of his too-long hair, pulled at Bo's heartstrings. He still didn't understand any of this, but yelling at each other wasn't getting them anywhere.

"I ain't going without you," Bo said, trying to keep the nervous quake out of his voice. It wasn't often that he stood up to Luke like this. It wasn't often that he had to.

"Bo!"

"There ain't no point in arguing with me, Luke," he said, placing his pack on the ground. "Smells like you got a batch ready for cookin'," Bo commented, heading for one of the barrels near the still.

Luke moved faster than Bo had guessed he could, tired as he looked. Grabbing his younger cousin by the arm, Luke spun him around so that the two boys were now facing off, barrels and still forgotten for the moment.

"Stay outta there!" Luke snapped. "All of this is for nothin' if you get yourself caught here!"

"All of this is for nothin'… Luke, what is any of this for? I don't understand!"

"You ain't gotta understand, Bo," Luke said, moving up a step, toe to toe with his cousin, and making his voice as menacing as possible. "All you gotta do is leave."

If it had been anyone but Luke, Bo's fists would have been flying. As it was, he clenched his hands into tight balls, but didn't allow them to move from his sides.

"I already told you, I ain't goin' without you. We're both stayin' or we're both leavin'. Up to you, cousin," Bo answered, every word weighed carefully upon his tongue before it was spoken aloud. "So are we makin' whiskey, or are we makin' tracks?"

The boys stared at each other for a moment, breathing hard as they stood close enough to feel the heat coming off of one another. Bo noticed, with some disgust, that Luke smelled like a combination of dirt, sweat and alcohol. He would bet good money that Luke was drinking a reasonable amount of each batch he made.

Luke, on the other hand, was picking up the more subtle scent of home in the mild smell of the detergent in Bo's shirt and the barely detectable aroma of the shampoo he'd used in his hair, the same shampoo he'd been using since they were young. And underneath these more synthetic smells was a whiff of the boy he'd grown up sharing a room with, the scent of just plain Bo.

"Bo!" Luke tried one more time, but the blonde simply stood his ground. "Damn it!" he snapped, spinning around and kicking dirt into the fire under the copper pot of a still. "We're goin', all right? You happy?"

"No," Bo answered honestly. "But I'll take what I can get," he added, bending to pick up his pack. "Let's get out of here."

Bo hadn't been thinking beyond the moment, and now that he and Luke were taking a second to camouflage the still site, he realized that he had no idea where he intended to take his cousin. But for all that Luke looked like a man that could no longer think clearly, he seemed to be as sharp as ever. While Bo would have led them into the woods to camp for the night, Luke brought them to where he had stashed Sweet Tilly.

"Guess the old girl got to make a few last runs after all," Bo mused, placing an admiring hand on the car that his uncle had modified especially for the purpose of delivering moonshine.

"I suppose," Luke muttered quietly, unlocking the trunk, and blocking Bo from putting his pack and compound bow in there.

"What're you doin' now?" the blonde asked, annoyed by the gesture.

"Gettin' rid of some incriminatin' evidence. Ain't no way I am lettin' you get into the same car as this," his cousin answered, pulling out the plastic panels that they'd removed dozens of times before, and revealing some undelivered wares. Yanking the bottles out, Luke smashed them, one by one, on a mossy stone.

"Seems a shame," Bo admitted, joining his older cousin at the task.

"Never held a candle to Jesse's 'shine anyways," Luke answered, sounding defeated. Bo would have liked to have comforted his cousin, but he didn't even know how to approach the wild man that had just finished destroying his goods and was now taking the pack off Bo's back to put it in the trunk, then placing the youngster's bow atop his own.

"Let me drive?" the blonde asked. It wasn't that he didn't trust Luke behind the wheel, exactly. It was more that he wasn't entirely sure that this was Luke.

"Suit yourself," the other man said, handing over the keys.

Until this moment, Bo had been expecting to take Luke home with him tonight, but now that they were in the car, and Luke was being so passive, he wasn't sure whether that was the best idea.

"Where are we goin'?" Bo asked.

"I suppose you're goin' home. And you should take Tilly. She's Jesse's after all. I've just been borrowin' her. But you can leave me at the bus stop in town."

Bo started the car, needing to put some distance between them and the still. But he had no intention of following Luke's plan this time.

"Why would I leave you at the bus stop?" Bo asked.

"'Cause wherever I go, I can't have you finding me again. You gotta be able to say you didn't know where I was or what I was doin', if they ever catch me," the dark haired man explained, without emotion.

Bo wanted to grab onto Luke's shirt and ask him exactly what he thought he was doing, but there was the more pressing need to get them out of these woods. He put his foot down hard on the accelerator, venting his frustrations that way.

"You might want to slow down," Luke commented, as though he didn't really care one way or the other.

"Why would I want to do that?" Bo snapped, angry at his cousin, the still they'd left behind, and even the dirt road in front of them.

"Because you don't know this trail, and it ain't exactly straight. Like up here," Luke's tone didn't change, but he reached for the wheel.

"Keep your hands to yourself," Bo grumbled, but he slowed somewhat.

"I just don't want you to get hurt."

This stung Bo worse than a slap across the face.

"Don't want me to get hurt. You run off for going on three months, and when I finally find you, you tell me to get lost and that you're gonna take off again. And you don't want me to get hurt? How exactly do you plan to accomplish that, Luke? Dang it!" He slammed his hand across the steering wheel, still angry at his cousin, the still and the road, but now also the tears that were forming in his eyes.

Luke swallowed, wincing. All the big decisions in his life had been this painful. "I'm sorry, Bo," he said quietly, not explaining what he was sorry for.

"Sorry. But not sorry enough not to do it again," Bo answered, treating his cousin to half-squinted, dark blue fury. "I ain't goin' home, least not yet, and I ain't takin' you to no bus, neither," the blonde announced as Tilly's wheels finally found blacktop instead of dirt. "Jesse ain't expectin' me home for another six days anyways."

Running a hand back through his dirty hair, Luke decided to go along with whatever Bo had in mind. It wasn't like waiting six days before heading out again would make that much of a difference, anyway. It would probably be a good month before he was back in business, what with needing to find a new site, locate a new source of corn, build a new still, and somehow get some wheels that he could use to deliver his 'shine. The older boy sat back, quietly, for the rest of the ride.

With a screech of tires, Bo slammed Tilly to a stop in front of L.B. Davenport's garage. "Come on, Luke," he growled, not trusting his cousin to be out of his sight for a minute.

The brunette raised an eyebrow at the tone his younger cousin had just taken with him, but he couldn't be bothered to fight right now. He came.

"Well, well," L.B. said with a smile. "Seems like our reports of a good-Samaritan wild man out there by Cooper's Gap would be true. Hey, Luke," he greeted cheerfully, with no idea just how tense things were between the Duke boys right now.

"L.B.," Luke responded with a slight nod, embarrassed. He hadn't really expected to see anyone he knew.

"L.B., my cousin and I need a place to stay for a couple of days," Bo said, leaning hard on the word 'cousin.'

"I ain't stayed up in the loft in a long time," L.B. answered, looking from one Duke to the other, noticing that they weren't exactly the affectionate pair that he was used to seeing. "But so far as I know, it's inhabitable up there. Y'all're welcome."

"Thanks," Luke said, forcing himself to be neighborly, even if he hadn't exactly been social lately.

"Come on, Luke," Bo said again, and this time his tone was just slightly gentler. "You need some food in you, and some sleep. Thanks, L.B.," he added, as he headed for the ladder that would lead to the place that he and Luke would crash for the next few days. And when they left here, Bo vowed to himself, it would be to go home, both of them. He had six days to get through to his thick headed cousin.


	26. Wherever You Are, I Am

_Hey, all - I'm updating from the road here. I passed through Covington, Georgia, and it put me in the mood. _

_That said, I'm not sure how often I'll get to check in over the next several days, so if I am late in replying, it's not because I don't appreciate y'all. You know I do._

_I don't own 'em, but for once, I do own the setting! It looks a lot like some of the country that I passed through today. __There's no such thing as Cooper's Gap (or if there is, it's coincidental) but if there was... I was lucky enough to feast my eyes on it today._

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**Chapter 26 – Wherever You Are, I Am**

There it was again. Over the last half hour, Bo could have sworn he'd heard Luke moan in his sleep probably three times by now. Normally, at home, he'd call out to his cousin and ask if he was all right. The brunette rarely did more than mumble a few words as he slept, and when he did make more noise, it usually meant something was wrong. But Bo didn't quite know how to approach Luke right now. His older cousin had hurt him badly, leaving him angry. All evening he'd found himself torn between wanting to take care of Luke and wanting to pound some sense into him.

They'd come up to L.B.'s loft to find the place in reasonable condition, with a couch, a cot, a kitchenette containing a tiny table and some chairs, and a small but fully functional bathroom. The younger Davenport cousin seemed to take better care of his "second home" than Cooter did. Leaving Luke for a moment, Bo went down to Tilly and retrieved his pack. Hauling it up the ladder to the loft, Bo came to a sudden realization.

"Where's your stuff, Luke? Your clothes and whatever else you had?"

"Back with the still."

"Luke!"

"Don't worry, there's nothing identifying about them. I got my wallet right here," he said, fishing the thing out of his back pocket. "An' they was pretty much beyond wearable anymore anyways."

"No kidding, cousin. So's what you got on," Bo announced. The Duke boys were not picky about cleanliness, but Luke was much more than dirty. His jeans were split at the knees, and darkened by mud stains, and his flannel shirt flapped mostly open, torn and missing buttons. This close look at his cousin prompted Bo's next words.

"Go take a shower." Digging into his backpack, he pulled out a pair of jeans and a shirt, and tossed them to the older boy. "I'll make us something to eat."

Luke wasn't used to taking orders from the blonde, but a shower did seem like a good idea, so he did as his cousin suggested. A few minutes later, he emerged, fully dressed and cuffing Bo's jeans. Despite how uncomfortable the last hour had been for Bo, he was forced to laugh.

"Now you know what it was like for me, getting all your hand-me-downs," he commented. Luke chuckled, too.

"You was always okay with it, though. I don't remember you complainin' much," the older boy answered.

"That's 'cause they was yours. I kinda looked forward to it, actually. It meant I was growing up to be like you."

Luke's eyes shifted away. "Aw geez, Bo…"

With a sigh, Bo changed the subject. "Come on, help me out over here." Luke had always been the better cook.

The boys had eaten in uneasy silence, each stealing looks at the other when they could.

"Bo," the older cousin started, needing to break the tension, "I never wanted to put you in jeopardy."

"Well, that much I got figured out. I just don't know why you'd do this in the first place, Luke. I mean, it's the one thing you shouldn't have done," Bo said, forcing himself to look straight into his cousin's eyes.

"Do you know of any other way I had to make the money we needed? What skills do I have, Bo? I barely graduated high school, and if I couldn't make my living fixing cars anymore, I ain't got no other trade except the one Jesse taught us," Luke tried to explain.

"Who said it was all up to you, cousin? We coulda found another way, if you'da come home."

"Bo… you, Jesse, Daisy, the farm, all of you mean more to me than a prison sentence. When I was home at Christmas, I saw how hard it was, how little Daisy was able to bring in. You was all depending on me."

Bo shook his head in anger. "And they call you the smart one. What do you think you mean to us, Luke? You think if you went off to prison, we'd just go on without you and be fine? Do you think that you having gone missing since January hasn't already been hard on all of us? Dang it!" Bo shoved his plate away. "I just… I'm too mad to talk to you right now, Luke," he said getting up and scraping what was left on his plate into the trash. "You look like you ain't slept in weeks. Why don't you finish up and take the cot. I'll be on the couch if you need me."

And now, several hours later, Bo was wondering whether Luke needed him. The noises that his cousin kept making didn't sound very comfortable.

Before the younger boy could ask if he was all right, Luke bolted upright and sprinted for the bathroom. Quietly, Bo got up to follow him, and found his big cousin exactly where he knew the brunette would be. Placing a hand on the other boy's bare back, Bo felt him heave.

"Easy, Luke," he said gently. But nothing was easy on Luke right now, as his body rejected all that he'd eaten a few hours ago. Bo sat down beside his cousin, waiting for the worst of it to pass. Finally, the brunette sat back, eyes closed and breathing raggedly.

"You been gettin' sick like this a lot, Luke?"

"I ain't sick," the older boy muttered, shifting his weight forward again as his body began to heave.

"Of course you ain't, anyone can see that," Bo replied dryly, moving his hand to push Luke's sweat darkened hair away from his face. "You need a haircut, cousin."

Luke sat back again, face white and moist.

"Okay, have you been 'not sick' in this particular way a lot lately?" Bo asked, smirking, but worried about his cousin's pallor.

"I guess," Luke answered.

"I thought so. You don't look like you been eating right. You been huntin'?" The brunette nodded, before resuming his position over the bowl. "An' cookin' over an open fire, right? I hope you been cookin' everything through," Bo said. It was Luke who had taught him about these things, how a man could get sick if the meat he ate hadn't been thoroughly cooked.

Luke's only answer was dry heaves.

"You gotta calm down, cousin," Bo suggested, gently. "Relax, breathe easy." This was also something he'd learned from his big cousin, that unless you calmed yourself, your stomach would keep fighting you, making things worse.

Again, the older Duke moved away from the commode, breathing deeply and slowly, eyes squeezed shut.

"There you go," Bo soothed, keeping a hand on his cousin's back. "How much you been drinkin', Luke?'

"More'n you want to know," the pale-faced boy answered honestly.

"Yeah, I had a pretty good idea that was the case. So, are we spendin' the night in here, or do you think you can make it back to bed?"

"You go on, Bo," Luke said, lifting a limp hand in a gesture of dismissal.

"Not without you," the blonde answered, making himself comfortable. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Luke woke up with a sore hip, and terribly disoriented. The place he was sleeping in had a hard surface, but that wasn't anything new. Sometimes he slept in Tilly, sometimes on the ground. What had him confused was the soft source of warmth at his back. Opening one blue eye, Luke shut it again quickly as the moonlit bathroom reminded him that he was in L.B. Davenport's loft in Sweetwater County and that the heat had to be coming his little cousin, now bigger than he was, curled up behind him, snug against his back. 

Closing that eye didn't make reality go away as he'd hoped, so Luke opened both of them and sat up slowly, carefully, seeing if his stomach would hold. Once he was confident that it would, he gently shook his younger cousin.

"Mmm?" Bo always was hard to awaken, even when the place where he slept was as hard and unforgiving as this bathroom floor.

"Come on, cuz. Let's get back to bed."

Bo lifted himself from the floorboards, remembering where he was, and why. With one long arm, he guided Luke back to the cot. Obviously Luke's stomach had stabilized, but his ability to walk a straight line was still somewhat impaired.

"You need a doctor, Luke," Bo observed.

"I'm fine."

"Come on," Bo said, helping his cousin to lie down on the cot, then squeezing himself in next to the older boy. "We'll argue in the mornin'. In the meantime, I ain't leavin' your side. If you need me, I am right here, Luke. Right here, and I ain't goin' nowhere without you, you understand?"

Weakly, the older boy nodded.

"I love you, Lukas," Bo muttered, stabbing both boys right through the heart with his words.

* * *

By morning, even Luke was ready to admit that visiting a doctor might be a good thing. "But not Doc Petticord," he insisted, even as he grimaced in pain, holding his stomach. 

"Shoot, Luke, if I took you back to Hazzard, lookin' like you do, old Doc Petticord would probably run in the other direction. I'll find out from L.B. who the town doctor is, and whether he'll take credit."

Luke shook his head. "I got cash to pay him. I was about to go get me a money order for you guys and send it when I made my next long-distance delivery."

"Then you got a pretty good amount of money. I was wonderin' how you was sendin' us so much," Bo shook his head, trying to dispel the anger. He still didn't know what had happened to the good judgment that his older cousin usually showed, but wherever it had gone, it didn't matter. Luke had literally worked himself sick, tying to provide for his family. "You stay put. I'm goin' to talk to L.B."

A couple of hours later, the boys found themselves at the Sweetwater Medical Clinic, talking to a doctor they had never met before, and one that Luke sincerely hoped they would never meet again. He was having to confess to a fairly embarrassing lifestyle, involving sleeping outdoors, drinking too much alcohol, and killing and cooking his own food over an open fire, including the wild boar he gotten for himself a couple of weeks ago. Camping was one thing, but living that way for nearly three months made for an awkward confession. This wasn't Vietnam, after all, but northern Georgia.

"Sounds like a perfect breeding ground for trichinosis, young man," the doctor said, sternly. "I'd strongly suggest you not cook over an open fire like that. It's a case of parasites just waiting to happen. Luckily for you, you seem to have caught this early. And probably that rotgut you've been drinking helped you avoid getting sick this way until now. But two wrongs don't make a right," he added, looking down a long and thin nose at his patient. "I'm going to give you a prescription, and I want you to take it until it is gone in ten days, then come back here. And if you don't start feeling better soon, or if you get severe stomach or muscle pain, I want you back sooner. You understand?"

Luke nodded, knowing he had no intention of ever walking through these doors again. He wouldn't be in Sweetwater County in ten days.

"From what your cousin says, you already have a pretty sensitive stomach. Mild foods and drink only, until it seems to settle down. And next time you go hunting, you bring that meat home to cook," the stern doctor, whose every gesture was stiff and unforgiving, advised.

"Yes, sir," Luke answered automatically, as he got unsteadily to his feet and, with a small amount of support from Bo, headed for the door.

* * *

"Any chance you're gonna let me take you to the farm to get better?" Bo asked, face full of hope. "Jesse knows more about this stuff than I do." 

"I'll be fine, Bo. Just take me back to L.B.'s and you can go on home if you want," Luke answered, eyes closed.

Brilliant blue eyes flew open as the blonde slammed on Tilly's brakes, skidding the car to a stop on the side of the road.

"Ain't you been listenin' to me at all, Luke? I am here – _right here and not goin' anywhere_. Wherever you are, I am. You got it?" the deep blue fury was back in Bo's eyes.

Closing his own tired eyes, Luke nodded. "Okay, I hear you. Let's just get this prescription and get back to L.B.'s," he added, quietly.

"Dang it, Luke," Bo muttered under his breath, as he started to move the car forward once again. "I wish I could make up my mind between being mad at you and worrying about you."

Luke just winced in response.

* * *

The older of the Duke cousins had eaten a few crackers, had some ginger ale, and taken his medicine. He was currently prone on the bed, and as far as Bo could tell, asleep. Sitting still had never been easy for the blonde, but now he stayed quietly by his cousin's side, sitting in a hard wooden chair next to the small cot. He kept one hand on Luke's arm, the other on his head, ostensibly so his cousin would be comforted by his presence, but in the silence of the room, he finally admitted to himself that he was mostly doing it to reassure himself that Luke was there, that the older boy hadn't already disappeared again. 

Bo still didn't fully understand what was driving his cousin, though he thought that right now part of what was affecting Luke was his illness. As the pills began to work their magic over the next few days, and Luke stated to feel better, Bo only hoped that his good sense would return right alongside his strength. If not, Bo was going to have a hard time keeping his cousin here long enough to talk some sense into him.

For now, though, all was peaceful, and as Luke slept, Bo let the tears fall out of his eyes and straight down his cheeks without even bothering to wipe them. His hands wouldn't move from the sleeping body of his cousin.


	27. Take Care of Your Cousin

_Hey - I'm back from a very pleasant trip, during which I happened to see a pickup with a particularly distinctive orange paint job, including the finer details. I also heard a few Dixie horns, one of which was woefully out of tune. You haven't lived until you've heard Dixie in a minor key... _

_Quick, before I slip back into deadlinesville, here's another chapter._

_Don't own 'em, don't earn from 'em, don't have much else to say._

* * *

**Chapter 27 – Take Care of Your Cousin**

Luke awoke feeling slightly better. It was probably a good thing that Bo had found him when he did, for although the brunette hadn't been feeling great for a few days, until last night, it hadn't been nearly so bad. And if he'd been out in Cooper's Gap, feeling that sick in the middle of brewing a batch of whiskey, he would've been risking blowing the still by not tending to it while he was incapacitated with illness. Not to mention that he probably would not have taken himself to the doctor, and so even if he didn't blow himself up, he would have gotten very sick within a day or two.

The older Duke hadn't opened his eyes yet, but he knew that Bo was keeping his promise to stay by his side. Luke could feel his cousin using his left hand to idly play with his dark curls, currently grown wild, while the warmth of Bo's right hand rested on his ailing cousin's forearm. Despite how little the older boy had wanted to see Bo yesterday, he had to admit to himself that the youngster's presence was a tremendous comfort to him right now. Silently opening his eyes, Luke looked up at the blonde that was sitting in the chair next to him.

Bo's eyes were unfocused, staring off into the distance. He seem to didn't realize that Luke was awake, which gave the older boy a moment to regard the younger. There were worry lines around the corners of Bo's eyes and mouth, a sight Luke hated to see. But a few small wrinkles didn't hold a candle to the tear that the older cousin watched as it slid down Bo's nose until it slipped off and splashed somewhere into his lap. For the briefest of moments, Luke wanted to close his eyes against his cousin's pain, but he'd never been able to do that, even when they were kids. Instead, he lifted his left hand and placed it overtop of where Bo's right rested on his other arm. The blonde startled a little, and turned his head to look at his cousin for a moment before looking away again.

"Jesse was right," Bo mumbled, head dropping.

"He usually is," Luke answered. "What was he right about this time?"

"He kept sayin' you didn't want to be found. You must have guessed I'd come lookin', the way you was mailin' them money orders from all over."

"I figured you might, yeah," Luke replied, honestly.

"Well, I'd go out lookin' after we got each one. An' of course, I'd never find you," Bo said, another tear finding its way down his nose. Luke squeezed the hand that was under his own.

"I'm sorry, Bo."

"I ain't done yet. You can't be sorry unless you know what you're sorry for," the blonde accused, quietly.

"I'm listenin'," Luke said, although every muscle and sinew in his body wanted to find some object with which to plug his ears.

"Every time I didn't find you, I'd come home, miserable, and make Jesse and Daisy miserable, too. Not that they wasn't already upset."

Luke shifted his way around so that he lying on his side, bent arm propping up his head. This prompted Bo to finally take his hands off of his cousin, but now he didn't know where to put them. Luke reached over and took one of them as Bo allowed the other to drop in his own lap.

"An' Jesse, he kept sayin' you didn't want to be found. But one time, he said it different, he said, 'Luke don't want you to find him.' An' I started yellin' at him, tellin' him that wasn't true, that whatever you was runnin' from, it wasn't me," the blonde said, finally lifting his head again to look across the room. "But he was right. You didn't want me to find you."

Luke sighed. His cousin wasn't wrong. Of all his family, Bo was the one he'd been trying hardest to keep his distance from.

"Only because I didn't want you goin' to prison, Bo. I mean, if Daisy was to get caught with moonshine, she'd get off easy, what with it bein' her first offense and all. But you'd go straight to prison…"

"So would you, Luke." This time there was no frustration in Bo's voice, only sadness. "I don't know why you think that'd be any better on me, you bein' in jail, and me bein' out. I might as well be in there with you."

"That ain't true, Bo. You bein' cooped up is like tryin' to tame a coyote. Either you'd have to bite your way free, quick, or you'd die in captivity," Luke said, looking at the younger boy's profile. The blonde's chin, even when he was this miserable, showed the strength of his defiance. He'd probably sass a guard and take a the beating of his life, or worse, shoot his mouth off at the wrong inmate, and wind up with a sharpened spoon stuck in his back.

"I'd rather die in captivity, than to know you didn't want me around," Bo answered, another tear sliding down his face.

Luke forced himself to a sitting position, squinting and grimacing against the way the room spun. Grabbing hold of Bo's chin, he made the younger boy meet his eyes.

"Bo, I always want you around. Sometimes it ain't smart for you to be around me, but I always want you around. It wasn't no easier this time than it was when I joined the service. Leavin' you behind… it's always been the hardest thing I've had to do. Don't mistake me stayin' away from you for me not lovin' you, 'cause I do."

Bo could hear the genuineness in those rarely spoken words, and if he had any doubts, he could see the honesty in the cool blue of Luke's eyes. And under the truth, Bo could see that his cousin was still quite ill, and didn't belong upright for very long.

"All right cuz, I know you do. It's just hard to remember that someone loves you when they're runnin' away from you."

Luke nodded. "I'm sorry, Bo."

"I know that, too. Come on, you lie back down and I'll get you some more ginger ale."

With another nod, Luke did as he was told. In another few minutes, with some ginger ale in his stomach and his cousin's hand resting on his shoulder, the brunette drifted off to sleep again.

* * *

The next time Luke stirred, it was the middle of the night, and Bo had found his way into the cot with his cousin. It was clear that Bo was taking his promise not to leave Luke's side very seriously. A wave of guilt tormented the older boy. It was his job to take care of his little cousin, not the other way around.

_Luke had been storming through the house, arms folded across his chest, complaining that no one loved him. It was a tactic that was guaranteed to bring him attention, except this time it didn't. He stomped back into the kitchen, where his aunt was tending to the baby._

_Lavinia had her hands full with the little one, but she was fully aware of Luke's mood and its cause. She'd been reading to him when little Beauregard began to cry, and she'd had to excuse herself. Without Jesse in the house to occupy her older charge, the boy had gotten instantly grumpy._

"_Come here, Luke," she called, quietly, using her own calm voice to settle the youngster down. "I need your help."_

"_Whaddya need my help for?" the boy asked, his voice still sullen, but his eyes curious. Lavinia bit back a smile._

"_I need you to help me feed little Beauregard here. He ain't takin' the bottle from me. Maybe he'll take it from you," she suggested. "He always seems more interested in you than he is in me or your uncle."_

_Luke came to where he could get a better look at his little cousin, who was on the kitchen table in his baby seat. The two boys had been residents of this house for more than a month now, but the bald infant with the big blue eyes didn't make for much of a playmate. Luke hadn't spent a lot of time with him yet, though his uncle had promised him that one day they would be the best of friends._

_The little boy climbed onto a chair to get better access to the baby. "Hey, Bo-gard," he said, doing the best with his cousin's name that he could, and taking the bottle from his aunt's hand. "You're hungry, ain't you?"_

"_Easy, Luke, don't force him. Just give him the chance to take it if he wants it," Lavinia counseled, wondering if this had been a smart idea after all. Luke was still so young himself._

_But the brunette child proved to be very gentle, and little Beauregard's eyes did fasten right onto his cousin's face. Staring into Luke's eyes, the baby took the nipple into his mouth._

"_See, I knew you could help me. And Luke, I'm going to need you to help me all the time with your baby cousin. It's gonna be your job to look out for him and make sure he doesn't get hurt, okay?"_

"_Okay," Luke answered, instinctively using a short little finger to stroke the baby's cheek._

_Lavinia's gamble paid off, and over the next several months, little Luke actually began to look forward to moments when Bo, as the bigger boy had renamed him for the sake of convenience, got fussy. There were times when the baby would calm for Luke and no one else._

"_It's your job to take care of your little cousin, Luke…"_

His aunt's words hung in his head as Luke's stomach turned over and he was forced to run for the bathroom again. A moment later Bo was there, speaking calming words, and stroking his hair back from his face. When his stomach finally realized there was nothing to expel and stopped fighting him, Luke sat back and squeezed his eyes shut, tight, against the tears that wanted to come.

As Bo helped him to his feet, Luke reached out blindly and pulled his baby cousin into his arms.

"I'm sorry, Bo," he muttered into the blonde's shoulder.

Surprised and grateful for Luke's affectionate gesture, Bo returned it, but remained wary all the same. As far as he knew, Luke was still planning on disappearing again as soon as he felt better.

"I know you are Luke," Bo sighed. "We'll talk about it in the mornin'."


	28. Don't Matter What Order We Were Born In

_Glub, glub, glub - that's the sound of my little, wooden canoe taking on water as I try to force it upstream through white water rapids. In other words, no vacation goes unpunished._

_But here's the next installment. Thanks for sticking with this one - I know it's long._

_If I owned them or was making any money from them, I'd buy a new canoe, or maybe even get out of the water all together!_

* * *

**Chapter 28 – It Don't Matter What Order We Were Born in**

Luke awoke first, feeling stronger than he had in a couple of days. Turning slightly so he could look at Bo's face, the older boy was glad to see him sleeping peacefully, worry lines gone in complete relaxation. This was the cousin he wanted to see. Luke was going to have to pull himself together so that Bo didn't have to look after him anymore. Sliding quietly out of the cot, the brunette headed for the small kitchenette. Between what he dug out of Bo's pack and the small supply of staples that L.B. had stocked this place with, Luke found that he had enough ingredients to make them some pancakes. He'd just plopped the first spoonful of batter into the pan when, on cue, Bo's eyes opened.

"Smelled somethin', huh?" Luke chuckled quietly.

"I suppose," Bo said, rubbing his hands across his face and coming fully awake. "What're you doing up?"

"Makin' breakfast," Luke answered simply. "What's it look like?"

"You feelin' up to that?"

"I guess so, since I'm doin' it," Luke said, eyeing his younger cousin carefully. He didn't want those worry lines returning.

"Pancakes probably ain't good for you," Bo commented, looking at Luke just as intently.

"I ain't gonna eat but one or two. Most of 'em are for you. Please, stop worryin' about me," Luke said, his voice a genuine request instead of the normal dismissive growl that he got when he was trying to convince his cousin that he was all right.

Bo wasn't sure how to feel about this development. The whole purpose of yesterday's trip to the doctor and the gentle care that the blonde had taken of his cousin the last thirty-six hours or so was to make Luke healthy again. But when Luke was better, he'd already indicated that he planned to run off again. Bo was torn between wanting a healthy cousin, and wanting one that he could keep close.

Rising and joining Luke in the kitchenette, Bo dipped his pinky in the pancake batter, then licked it clean, eliciting a genuine smile from his older cousin. The warm amusement in Luke's eyes was too much for Bo.

"So now that you're feelin' better are you gonna run off again?"

"Aw, Bo…" Luke started, but looked away from his cousin and didn't say any more.

"Come on, Luke, what's it gonna be? Are we goin' home or are we headed off into the mountains? Because wherever you go, I am goin' with you," Bo said, all traces of relaxation gone from his face as it hardened into resolve.

Remembering the sizzling pan in front of him, Luke turned his eyes there, but his words were directed at Bo. "I ain't gonna let you come with me, cousin."

"So you _are_ plannin' to go. Why, Luke? I don't understand. I'm still tryin' to figure out why you went in the first place," Bo admitted. "I know you was tryin' to help us out, but why this way?"

Placing the cooked contents of the skillet onto a plate, Luke turned off the stove and put the rest of the pancake batter into the tiny refrigerator for later. This was a conversation that required more attention than he could give it while he was cooking. Putting the lion's share of breakfast in front of his cousin, Luke sat.

"Bo, did Jesse buy seed for this year's crops yet?" he asked.

"It's about time you asked about home. I was startin' to think you'd forgotten you had one," Bo accused, ignoring the food in front of him for now.

"I ain't forgot, Bo," Luke said, quietly.

"Yeah, he's got seed, an' he's ready to sow it in a week or so," the blonde testily answered Luke's original question.

"At least you got enough for that," Luke said, biting his lip in thought. "Have things picked up in town yet? Is Daisy bringin' much home from the Boar's Nest?"

The blonde shook his head. "Only what she can get from the long haulers. No one in Hazzard's got anything extra to spend."

"And still no Federal funds, right?"

Bo's head shook sharply this time. "No, Luke. None of that stuff's changed since you was last there, all right? Quit askin' me this stuff and tell me why you're plannin' on runnin' off again."

"Easy, Bo, I'm gonna answer your question," Luke said, nudging the syrup he'd found in the cupboard across towards his cousin. "An' eat, please, before it gets cold."

Still keeping his eyes mostly on Luke, the younger Duke cousin tasted the food in front of him. As always, he was surprised by the fact that Luke wasn't a half-bad cook.

"Cousin, you know as well as I do that we couldn't afford to lose last year's crop," Luke began. "An' then, on top of that, needing a new barn plus the rest of the repairs to the house. Without the crops, we wouldn't even be able to feed ourselves, let alone fix anything."

"That's why we let you go off to Valdosta. I ain't askin' about that, Luke," his cousin clarified.

"I know. But when I came home for Christmas, well, I'd been earning what I could, fixin' cars. Tom paid fair wages, better'n I could probably get anywhere else."

Bo nodded. "I met Tom. I liked him, and he really liked you."

"You went lookin' for me in Valdosta, too, huh? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Anyways, when I was home for Christmas, I saw how little it was helping, the money I was earnin'. Y'all had the barn, but everything else still looked so… beat up." Luke spoke carefully, not wanting to hurt his cousin's feelings about the cleanup and rebuilding attempts that he knew the boy had made. "Even before Tom let me go, I knew I wasn't makin' enough. So I started to think about what I could do."

"An' one day you was sittin' and drinkin' with your friend Jerry, and you thought of moonshinin'. I met Jerry, too. Real nice guy," Bo said, sarcastically.

"Gave you a hard time, did he? I'll tell you somethin', Bo. Jerry ain't always easy to like, but he's a good guy. The kind of guy you could count on in a life and death situation," Luke informed him.

"Don't make him friendly," Bo muttered.

"Nope, and he ain't. But getting back to the moonshinin', yeah, that's pretty much how it happened. I was sittin' there trying to figure out how I could make more money…"

"And you were drinking. Ain't you the one always said that drinkin' and thinkin' don't go together? I always looked up to you, cousin. Now I don't even hardly know how to look at you anymore," Bo snapped. "Of all the things you could choose to do, why pick the one that could lead to prison?"

"Okay, here we are, both stone cold sober," Luke said with forced evenness, light eyes fixed on dark, revealing some of his own pain in response to Bo's words. "Can you tell me a better way I could have earned as much as we needed?"

"No, actually, I can't," Bo answered. "But before you start thinkin' you were right in what you did, let me ask you this. How many times did Uncle Jesse tell us that the farm don't mean nothin' compared to family?"

"I don't know, a hundred, a thousand? And I heard him every time, cousin. I wasn't tryin' to protect the farm so much as make sure that all of you were taken care of. I was doin' what was right for the family," Luke argued.

Bo just shook his head. "I don't know where you get the idea that you ain't part of the family, Luke! Or that the rest of us would be just fine if you wasn't there. It's one thing to protect me or Daisy or even Uncle Jesse now that he's gettin' older. But why won't you protect yourself?"

"Protect myself from what?" Luke asked, genuinely surprised by the question.

"I can't believe you're askin' me that. Look at you! You're exhausted, you're sick, you've been on the run for going on three months, and in winter, too! And you've always got to watch your back, lookin' for revenuers, cops, customers long since gone crazy from drinkin' bad 'shine, and anyone whose business you might be stealin'. Even when you came back from 'Nam, you didn't look this rough, cousin." Bo ran a hand over his face, a gesture meant to keep his emotions in check.

"But none of that matters to me, as long as you all are okay," Luke explained, simply.

Bo exploded. "It don't matter to you? Well it matters to me, Luke! I don't understand what makes you think that you can just disappear, or that you can be sick like this, and somehow it won't mean anything to me." Forcing himself to calm down a little, the blonde tried a new tactic. His cousin was smart, everyone knew that. But sometimes he needed help to connect the emotional dots.

"Luke, when you don't know where I am, you worry about me, don't you? And when I'm sick, you take care of me. Why can't you see that that goes both ways?"

"I'm supposed to worry about you," Luke answered, lifting his shoulders just slightly, then dropping them again.

"Because you're older, right? Well, here's a newsflash for you, cousin: I'm supposed to worry about you, too. Because we're family, and it don't matter what order we were born in," Bo said, his eyes red with unshed tears, and barely holding his voice steady. "And maybe more important than worrying about you is missing you. Luke, I'd rather be hungry and have you at home, than have plenty of food, a new barn, heck a new house – and have you gone." Tears were starting to fall now. "Somehow you think _you_ don't matter, that all that matters is what you can do for us. I got news for you, cousin. You are the most important thing to me, not the barn, the crops, the livestock or even the farm. _You_."

Luke was burning with embarrassment, but his cousin was so upset that he was forced to put that aside for now. Sliding his chair around the table so that he could reach the younger boy, he quietly pulled the blonde into his arms. Bo came easily, just as his cousin knew he would, but not without some final words on the subject, muffled by the shirt on Luke's shoulder.

"Jesse wouldn't take your money anyhow, not if he knew where it was comin' from."

"And you'd tell him?" Luke asked, his breath shifting the curls on Bo's head.

Bo shook his head. "Nope. Won't be able to. 'Cause if you're takin' off again, I am comin' with you."

Luke sighed. "All right, Bo. I hear ya."

* * *

Luke' stomach managed to hold down the little bit of breakfast that he'd eaten, but no amount of sleep seemed to take away his fatigue. The boys were sitting on the small couch in L.B.'s loft, talking about how things in Hazzard were progressing since Luke had last visited, when the older boy yawned. 

"Back to bed, Luke," Bo suggested.

"I think you're right. You ain't gotta sit right here, though. I ain't going nowheres," the brunette promised.

"I ain't guardin' you Luke," Bo answered gently. "I'm here if you need me. And don't tell me you're fine, 'cause I ain't buyin' it."

"Ain't you bored? I ain't never seen you sit still so long."

"I don't know, it don't bother me like it usually does. Guess I'm just glad to be around you," the blonde answered with a shrug.

It always amazed Luke how Bo could just say things like that, almost as if he was commenting on the weather. The words were deeply felt and meant, the older boy knew. What he didn't know was how Bo could just… say them.

Luke finally pulled himself up from the couch and began to make his way to the bed. Not looking at his cousin, he said, "Ah, Bo… thanks for comin' lookin' for me."

Smiling at his cousin's retreating back, the blonde answered, "Any time, Luke."


	29. I Always Knew I Had a Home

_Well, although this story was completed a couple of months back now, I always do one final edit before posting, and lately I've been so busy that it's been hard to find time to even do that! So this chapter was rather hastily edited, and I only hope it's still in English after that little process. My brain is pretty close to jello by now. Writing really, incredibly, extremely,_ boring!_ grants will do that to you._

_I don't own those Duke boys, not one bit. The words I use to write about them, now those are mine. But they don't earn me a danged nickel!_

* * *

**Chapter 29 – I Always Knew I Had a Home**

With each passing day, Luke slept less and felt better. Before the boys knew it, it was only a couple of days before Bo had promised to return to the farm.

"So, Luke?" Bo approached his cousin carefully. They'd struggled towards a certain peace with one another and were trying to resume their normal close relationship. But not everything was settled. "Are we goin' home, or are we runnin' off into the woods?"

They were sitting on the lumpy couch in L.B.'s loft. Luke was still amazed that his cousin hadn't gone stir crazy yet, what with all the time they'd spent in tight quarters. Now that he was feeling better, even the older boy was getting restless to get out and breathe some fresh air. Dukes weren't known for being homebodies.

With a deep sigh, Luke answered his younger cousin. "We're goin' home. It ain't like I was gonna let you make moonshine, but even if I was, I just… I don't feel like it no more. I wasn't enjoyin' it, but as long as I was doin' it, it was okay. Now that I ain't been workin' the still for awhile, I don't exactly want to go back to it."

Bo smiled. He'd worked hard to tame his cousin back down from the wild mountain man that the older boy had been threatening to become. The two boys had argued plenty over the last several days, each sure that they knew better than the other exactly what 'taking care of family' meant. In the end, Luke had been forced to admit that his plan had contained more than one flaw. He'd been fully aware of the risk to himself and Bo, and had done his best to minimize that part. But he'd never really understood that his habit of running away from painful things could hurt the people around him. Bo had forced him to grasp that the love of freedom had nothing on the love of family. Of course, the older cousin's outward appearance didn't reflect his more domestic frame of mind.

"Cuz? Before I take you home to Jesse and Daisy, you need a shave and a haircut. And maybe even some clothes that fit you."

Scratching at his bearded chin, Luke answered, "I don't know, I was kinda liking this look."

"If I take you home lookin' like that, Daisy'll run screamin'," Bo teased. "And Jesse…" The jovial tone left Bo's voice.

"Ain't no kinda haircut gonna make any of this all right with Jesse, cousin," Luke said quietly.

"I know, Luke. But it ain't gonna hurt. If he looks at you now, he won't be seeing you," Bo said, picking up an easily six inch lock of Luke's hair and holding it out between his fingers. "He's gonna see old Jebediah or Silas or some of the other half-crazy old moonshiners from the mountains around here. You gotta give yourself half a chance with him," Bo told him earnestly.

"It's okay, Bo, I'm ready to tame this mop anyways. It's drivin' me nuts."

* * *

A few hours later, Bo was glad to be able to look over towards the passenger seat of the car and see his older cousin looking much like he had last fall, before he'd headed off to Valdosta. Without the beard, the brunette's face seemed even more gaunt and tired-looking, but the hair that framed it was no longer an overgrown bush, it was just Luke's normal, barely-under-control curls. And he was wearing a shirt that actually fit him, as opposed to Bo's, which sat awkwardly across Luke's shoulders, with the sleeves hanging halfway over his hands. The Duke boys weren't normally ones to shop, leaving that little chore for their female cousin, but today they'd managed to go to the barber and a clothing store, both. This feat of patience deserved a reward. 

"Luke?" Bo asked with a smile. "You up for a ride?"

For the first time since Bo had dragged his unwilling cousin out of the woods, the boys had gone out to the back alley behind L.B.'s shop and climbed into the General Lee. Any time they'd left the garage during the past few days, they'd gotten into Tilly, in deference to Luke's health. But today the older Duke boy had declared himself ready to slip through the stock car's windows, although he walked over to the passenger side, rather than taking a shortcut across the hood.

"Hit it, cousin," Luke said, settling back for the ride.

They stayed off of main roads where someone they knew might have seen them. The boys weren't ready for friends and family quite yet, with Bo wanting to give Luke one more night to adjust his mind to facing their uncle. And if anyone that they knew from the tri-county area spotted two heads bobbing around in an orange stock car, the news that Luke had been found would beat the boys home by twenty-four hours. Bo had sworn L.B. to silence on that first night, but he probably didn't need to. The young Davenport was not really known for being the tri-county gossip, and unlike the Hazzard Garage, L.B.'s place wasn't exactly his town's central hub of information.

For the first time since August, the Duke boys did what came naturally, driving aimlessly through back roads at high speeds. Ever alert to Luke's recent illness, Bo took it easy on the jumps and jolts, but otherwise this day could have passed for any other warm spring afternoon in northern Georgia.

And as the sun began to set, they headed back to L.B.'s for one last night. After a meal and a comfortable evening of talking about girls and cars while studiously avoiding more serious topics, they'd retired to bed. Though he had stopped keeping a vigil over his cousin, Bo still insisted that Luke take the more comfortable sleeping quarters, the cot, while he settled onto the couch.

"You still need your rest, cuz. You ain't a hundred percent yet."

As if to prove his cousin right, Luke made another middle of the night sprint for the bathroom. Bo was less than a minute behind him.

"Easy, cousin," he said, hand running along Luke's goose bump-covered skin, waiting for a break in his suffering. Finally, the brunette crossed his arms over the seat of the toilet and rested his head on them. "Anything else hurt, Luke? Muscle pains, headache?" Bo asked, scrambling to remember the symptoms that the clinic doctor had told him to watch for.

"No. I ain't sick," the older boy answered. Seeing his cousin's sarcastic look, he continued, "At least not that way. I…" Luke had to stop talking and lift his head, as his body threatened to betray him again. Bo didn't push him, but sat back, one hand still on Luke's shoulder. "I'm worried about goin' home and facin' Jesse," he admitted, when it became clear that his stomach wasn't going to turn on him again. "An' my stomach's not as strong as it usually is, so…"

"He loves you, Luke." It was the best that the blonde could offer his cousin. He couldn't say that everything would be all right, because he honestly didn't know that. Their uncle could be very difficult to deal with when he got riled.

Luke winced. "I know that," he said, shaking his head just slightly. Any quick movements were liable to make him sick again.

"He's missed you, too. He'll be glad to see you."

"Until I tell him where I've been, yeah." Luke laid his head back down on his arms.

Bo wasn't sure what to say. His cousin was showing more vulnerability than he typically did. Normally, Luke would just let Jesse have at him, especially if he knew he was in the wrong.

"What are you afraid of, Lukas?" the blonde asked, moving his hand up to stroke Luke's shorter curls. Maybe his cousin would talk about it, seeing as he appeared to be more open than usual tonight. The older boy was quiet for long enough that Bo thought he might not get an answer, but it turned out that Luke was only thinking.

"I guess that he'll tell me to leave again. I know it's weird, considerin' I was plannin' on never comin' home but…" the brunette's head came up as he stalled out again.

"But?" Bo asked, prompting, but not pushing. He knew his cousin too well to press him.

"But I always knew I had a home to go to, even if I was choosin' not to go there. If Jesse don't want me there no more… I ain't got a home," Luke answered, closing his eyes against tears, and laying his head back onto his arms.

"He won't do that Luke," Bo said, gently. "You're not thinkin' straight. From the time we was little, he promised us that we always had a home with him," the youngster consoled. Although the Duke kids were technically orphans, Jesse had always done his best to make sure they never felt anything but welcome in his house.

"I guess. I just hope I ain't gonna change his mind about that," Luke said, still not opening his eyes for fear of letting loose a tear.

"Family is the most important thing to him. That ain't gonna happen." Luke's anxiety wasn't logical, but Bo knew that little fact didn't make it any less real. "You got control of your stomach?" Bo asked him.

"Yeah." Luke's breathing was ragged.

"Then come on," the blonde instructed, helping his big cousin to his feet, and pretending not to notice the moisture leaking from the corners of his eyes. "Back to bed." This time Bo slid in beside the other boy, and without mentioning the tears he'd seen, slipped an arm around him. In the privacy of the dark, Luke gave in to his emotions, and Bo didn't say a word. He just held on.

* * *

Bo would have liked to reassure his cousin again as they re-entered Hazzard the next afternoon, but he couldn't. They were in two different cars, and he didn't want to use the CB for that kind of a personal interaction. Besides, he needed to avoid tipping anyone off to the fact that he was bringing his older cousin home. At least if they surprised their family, Luke would get a chance to see how much he'd been missed before he had to explain himself. 

But the blonde could tell that Luke was nervous, what with the way he was driving so seriously, not even noticing the bumps and dips that he'd normally use to get a little air. Bo was concerned about his cousin, but the best he could do was wave to him in the rearview mirror. Luke's focus was so singular that he didn't even respond.

Finally they turned down the long driveway to the Duke farmhouse, where Bo knew that their kin would be listening for the General's engine. As soon as he pulled the orange car to a stop, the blonde started yanking himself out of the window, wanting to offer Luke some last minute encouragement before they headed inside.

He didn't move fast enough. Daisy was already out the door, her long slender legs making a beeline for her prodigal cousin. With a leap, she caught him, arms around his neck, in a tight hug. Bo winced as she lifted her right hand and cuffed the back of Luke's head, hard enough to hurt. The brunette just took it.

"Don't you ever do that again," she stormed, then softened her scolding with a kiss to his cheek. "You hear me?"

Bo watched his older cousin swallow. "I hear you," he said, and Daisy snuggled close to him again.

By this time, their uncle had emerged from the house, and Bo watched Luke's eyes grow worried, even as he looked at the old man over the top of Daisy's head. For her part, the young woman felt her older cousin tense, and stepped back to let the two men greet each other. Bo reached out and Daisy was in his arms in a second, simultaneously saying 'hello' and taking refuge from whatever was about to happen between the two oldest Dukes.

Jesse lifted his heavy arms and gathered Luke's cheeks between his hands, looking his light-eyed nephew square in the face. "I ain't gonna ask you where you been, boy, not just yet. An' I don't want you to tell me neither. We got time for that later, an' I don't wanna be mad at you, not right now. I just wanna be glad you're home." Finally releasing Luke's face, his uncle pulled him close. "Welcome home, boy."

Bo watched his cousin's eyes close as his brunette head dropped to Jesse's shoulder. He could see the strain in Luke's face, and the sensitive younger boy had a pretty good guess that his cousin was savoring this hug, in case it was his last.

"You've lost weight, boy," Jesse informed him, with a thump to his back. "You go on upstairs and settle in. I'm gonna make you some bisque to fatten you back up," he continued. "And after a good meal, then we'll talk, all right?"

Luke nodded, letting his uncle lead him into the house, and shoo him up the stairs. He was standing in the middle of the bedroom, looking lost, when Bo entered a moment later, shutting the door behind him.

"You okay, cuz?"

"Yeah," Luke answered, looking around the room for something to do, so he wouldn't have to stand there fidgeting. Finally he settled for simply sitting on his tidily made bed. "I just wish he would have let me get it over with, you know?"

Bo did know. Luke had always preferred to take his punishment right away, unlike Bo, who used to try to beg or bargain his way out of it. The blonde's tactics never worked, but ever hopeful, he tried them anyway.

The younger boy sat next to his cousin. "He told you to come up here and settle in, Luke. You don't say that to someone if you're gonna kick them out."

"Maybe so, cuz, but he ain't let me talk yet. Soon as he does…" Luke drifted off for a moment, then came back to himself. "An' I sure don't wanna eat before I talk to him," Luke said meaningfully.

"Especially not bisque," Bo agreed. Jesse's crawdad bisque was known as the tastiest cure in three counties for a sinus infection, but it was likely to burn a hole right through Luke's sensitive stomach. "I'll make sure there's some bread on the table, okay? You just eat that and go light on the bisque."

Luke nodded, "Thanks, Bo."

Getting up, Bo placed a hand on his cousin's shoulder. "Take a nap, Luke. You're still worn out from bein' sick. I'll come get you up when dinner's ready." With a gentle pat, Bo released Luke's shoulder and headed for the door.

His older cousin always took things so hard, and Bo wanted to ease his worry, but this time he couldn't. Luke and his uncle would have to work this out, and Bo only hoped it'd go easy on Luke. As angry as he'd been when he first found the brunette, he'd seen his cousin suffer enough already for his poor judgment.

Quietly closing the door to their shared bedroom, Bo headed to the kitchen, hoping to pave the way for his cousin just a little bit.


	30. Hurting Pretty Bad

_This is one of _those_ chapters - you all know them - the kind that gives you fits. More of this wound up on the cutting room floor than survived, and it took me probably a week to get through it. I thoroughly expected to rewrite it before posting it, but in the two months since I got it "done," a rewrite still hasn't presented itself to me. So - here it is, warts and all._

_Thanks to everyone who has been with me throughout, and special thanks to those who review. Especially on those days when not a useful word will come - your comments mean a lot._

_I don't own those dreamy boys, not one bit. The things I do to them, the words I use to do it - now those are mine. But those words, they don't get me paid._

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Chapter 30 – Hurting Pretty Bad 

The discussion about Luke's whereabouts for the last few months was taking place in the barn, at his oldest cousin's request. Bo supposed it made perfect sense for Luke to want this. First, it was a more private place than the kitchen, and as much as Daisy had a right to know where her cousin had been, she didn't need to bear witness to Jesse's temper.

And second, the barn, although it was not the exact same structure that had been there before the storm, was traditionally the location of choice for Jesse to discipline his boys. If Luke wanted to get it over with, he might as well already be in the place where he'd always taken his childhood whippings, though Bo doubted that this punishment would be corporal. Despite the fact that Jesse still threatened to tan their hides all the time, he hadn't done so for a lot of years.

The blonde was out in the farmyard, feeding the latest of Sadie's kids. Though the baby goat was apparently not hungry in the least, Bo sat on the stump that had once been his and Luke's shared oak, and held the animal in one hand and the bottle in the other anyway. It was a heck of a lot quieter than chopping wood, and it would give him half a chance of knowing how things were going inside the barn. He wasn't eavesdropping, exactly, just keeping himself around in case Luke needed him. But right now, he couldn't hear anything.

In his mind, Bo went back over dinner. What was supposed to be a celebration was very quiet, since Luke was worried about Jesse, Bo was worried about Luke, and Daisy was watching all the men in her family very carefully. Bo knew she'd be hounding him for the story behind Luke's disappearance at the first moment that she got, and he also knew that he was going to have to try his hardest to resist her. The tale wasn't his to tell.

"You ain't eatin' much, Luke," Jesse commented. The oldest Duke cousin had been doing as good a job of faking it as he could, but their uncle's eagle eye could not be fooled.

"Ain't much hungry, I guess." This much was true, Bo was pretty sure. Luke's appetite had certainly been diminished by the effects of the parasite he'd had, and probably his nerves as well.

"You've lost weight, boy, and I don't want you losin' no more. You just see if you can't put a little more food in you even if you ain't hungry," Jesse said, gently. Bo winced in sympathetic pain for his cousin. Jesse was already punishing him without even meaning to.

Luke did as he was told, though, putting away more bread than bisque, but eating some of both. But he still wasn't talking, and neither was anyone else. Finally the meal was done, and it was apparent to everyone that Jesse's attempt at a happy homecoming meal had failed.

"Uncle Jesse, if you don't mind, I'd as soon skip dessert," Luke appealed, quietly. "An' wait out in the barn until you're done. I want to talk to you."

"All right, Luke. We'll save dessert for later. Bo, Daisy, you get on with the dishes."

As soon as the older men were gone, Bo's eyes had pleaded with his female cousin.

"All right, you go on out there, Bo Duke. But later, you are tellin' me everything." Hating the price, Bo agreed to pay it anyway. He just figured he'd let Luke tell her his version first, then Bo could tell her what he knew.

So now he was out here, cuddling a baby goat and finally hearing the beginning of things going wrong in the barn. He was catching words like "fool" and "cousin" and the whole phrase, "we made a promise." So Luke had gotten to the part about the 'shine. Bo stood and edged closer to the barn.

"I thought you had smarts, boy!" Jesse shouted, clear as day. "I sent you away to help out, not to get your dang-fooled self sent to prison! An' if that ain't enough, you coulda wound up takin' your cousin with you!"

"That's why I made sure Bo didn't know what I was doin', Jesse, so they couldn't take him, too."

"Ain't you been listenin', boy? That promise I made was that no Duke would make moonshine. You made 'shine, and you coulda both wound up in prison for breakin' my word!"

If Luke had an answer, Bo didn't hear it.

"And then there's breakin' my word. I didn't give it so's you could break it the first chance you got!"

"I didn't break it without plannin' first, Jesse! You can't think I wanted Bo to go to jail. And you sure can't think I ever meant to hurt you," Luke pleaded.

"I don't know what to think. You was always the one I thought had the best judgment. Now I'm so disappointed in you that I can't talk to you no more. We'll finish this later," their uncle stormed.

Bo beat a hasty retreat to the stump, where he resumed trying to coax the bottle into the kid's mouth. He looked up as his uncle passed, ready to get an earful about where he was, but the old man seemed not to even see him, as he stomped right on past and out towards the far reaches of the property. Putting down his useless props, Bo headed for the barn.

Luke was sitting in the relative dark, elbows on his knees and contemplating his folded hands. Intentionally scuffing his feet a little, so as not to startle his cousin, Bo came up behind him. Luke had been more open than usual with him last night, and the blonde was hopeful that the trend would continue. But he didn't press. He just laid a hand on Luke's back, using the physical contact to simply say, _I'm here if you need me_. Sometimes silent communication worked best between these particular Duke cousins. Bo had just about given up on his cousin having anything to say, when Luke finally turned to him with a sad little smile.

"Remember when Jesse used to actually turn us over his knee, Bo?"

The blonde chuckled. "It'd be hard to forget. An' it seems to me that was his goal, that we would remember it forever."

"I almost wish he'd do it now. I mean, at least when it was over, he'd always tell us he loved us, and he forgave us for whatever we'd done… Now, I'm not sure he'll ever forgive me."

"He will, cousin. He just needs to cool off. He wants you to stay, I'm sure of it," Bo said, understanding Luke's fears more than he wanted to. They were both orphans, after all, with a very keen sense of how lucky they were to have a home at all.

"It's hard, though, not bein' a kid anymore, feelin' responsible, feelin' like it's time to make a lot of my own decisions, wantin' a home, and wantin' to be able to roam, both," Luke said quietly, feeling his cousin's hand tense on his back. He slid over a little, inviting the youngster to sit beside him. "Don't worry, Bo. I ain't goin' nowhere, assumin' Jesse lets me stay."

Bo settled in, close enough to drape an arm across Luke's shoulders. "Where would you go, Luke, if you could go anywhere?" The older Duke cousin had always expressed a bit of wanderlust, wondering aloud about such things as the Grand Canyon, the Mojave Desert and the Rocky Mountains; names that just reminded Bo of boring lessons in geography.

For the briefest of moments, Luke's eyes gleamed with that coming-up-with-a-plan look. "I don't know, cousin." His words were unsure, but his tone was thoughtful.

Then, quick as a wink, his face clouded back over. "Don't matter none, Bo. I ain't goin' nowhere. Besides, wherever I go, you're comin' with me, right?" Luke said with a smile that showed far more pain than happiness.

Looking closely at his cousin, Bo felt a quiet struggle within himself. He wanted to set Luke free, and he wanted to hold him right here, forever. But it didn't matter what he wanted. Luke's mind was made up; the younger boy knew that before he'd even asked the question. Bo's only option was to make sure that Luke didn't regret the decision.

"We've had a good life here," the blonde said, looking around at the mule's stall, the tractor, the hay on the floor, the late light slanting in through the doors. None of this was anything special, but all together, if you added up the pieces, it equaled home.

"Oh, I know that, Bo. I love you all and this farm more than I can say, or at least more than I ever do say," Luke answered, not looking at his cousin, his face burning. "I ain't sorry to be here. It's just that I sometimes… howl at the moon, is all, you know?"

"I know, cousin," the blonde answered.

"An' sometimes it's hard, lovin' your family so much."

"You ain't exactly easy to love neither, cuz," Bo said, tightening his hold on Luke's shoulders with a grin. "But you're worth it, even if you do cheat at checkers."

"Ain't my fault you don't know how to sit still long enough to work out a decent strategy." Both boys snickered.

"How's your stomach doin', Luke?" Bo asked as he watched his cousin's smile fade.

"Holdin' its own, I guess," the older boy answered. Despite his unhappiness, he had to smirk a little at the unintended pun. "You don't gotta wait here with me, cousin."

"No place else I want to be," Bo answered.

The boys sat in silence for what felt like a long time, watching through the open barn doors as the sun burned its way towards the earth, and waiting for their uncle to calm down. Bo could feel the tension in Luke's shoulders and wished there was some way he could make this go faster for his cousin. Finally, with a squeeze to Luke's tight neck muscles, Bo quietly excused himself.

It was one thing to tell his older cousin that they were peers now, and that Luke could count on him every bit as much as he relied on Luke. But, sitting in the darkening barn with the older boy, Bo had come to the unexpected realization that there was a better way to show it than just keeping his cousin company.

The youngest Duke found his guardian about where he expected, out checking the soil that they would soon plant. Suddenly, he didn't know how Luke had done it all those years, approaching the old man on Bo's behalf. When Jesse was riled, he was definitely not something you wanted to go towards. As the patriarch turned at the sound of his footsteps, Bo saw the last of the orange sunset reflecting deeply through Jesse's white hair, making him glow. This didn't calm Bo's fears, but he forced his feet to move him forward.

The blonde wasn't sure where to begin, so he started at the middle.

"He's hurtin' pretty bad, Jesse."

"Oh, I know that, Bo. It's tryin' not to hurt him worse that's got me out here instead of talkin' to him right now," the old man admitted.

The blonde didn't know exactly what he expected, but it certainly wasn't that.

"I don't understand all of it myself," Bo said. "But I do know that he was tryin' to help."

"I never doubted that, son. I'm just real disappointed in the method he chose." The old man shook his head, trying to shake loose the idea of Luke being so thoughtless.

"Remember back when you was tellin' me he's different from me and Daisy? Well, you were right. He don't seem to understand, at least not until you explain it to him, how much we could miss him," the blonde said, getting in step with his uncle as they walked the periphery of the field. "Or that we would worry so much about him. Or even that we'd rather starve than have him get himself locked up for ten years."

Jesse stayed quiet.

"I just want you to understand him," Bo clarified, getting nervous about the silence.

"I understand him maybe better than you know, son," Jesse said, sighing. "Giving up moonshinin' was harder'n I let on at the time. They say the business gets in your blood. I just didn't think you boys had been doin' it long enough for it to be in yours," Jesse confessed.

"You think about goin' back into moonshinin'?" This was certainly news.

"From time to time. But I gave my word and I ain't gonna go against it. I understand the temptation, but I never thought Luke would go against it, either," Jesse said, looking older than he'd ever seemed to before.

"Uncle Jesse," Bo said, working things out in his mind as he spoke. "Luke, he wasn't doin' it for the reason you think. He wasn't havin' a lot of fun, that much I know. He was just doin' it so's he could send us money."

"Well, that's why the Dukes have always done it, to earn our livin'. But the thrill of it… that's just the icing on the cake," Jesse reminded him.

"Luke wasn't gettin' any thrills, Uncle Jesse. At least, he never talked about that. In fact, he said he wasn't enjoyin' it," Bo told him. "I, uh, I didn't bring him straight home. I found him six days ago. It took him this long to get well. He was sick from livin' out there. He wasn't doin' it because he really wanted to, Uncle Jesse."

"He was sick?"

"He ate undercooked meat, cookin' a wild boar over the campfire and not gettin' it done all the way through. I took him to a doctor. He's gonna be okay," Bo said, trying to wipe the alarmed look off his uncle's face. "Go talk to him, Uncle Jesse, he can tell you all about it. I don't wanna do that, it ain't my place. I just… he's hurtin', an' the longer you ain't talkin' to him, the more he hurts."

"I ain't half as mad no more. I guess I can talk sense now," Jesse agreed. Then his face hardened back into a look Bo knew all too well. "An' Bo, you was supposed to be helpin' your other cousin with the dishes, not pretendin' to feed no goat. So you just get on back in the house an' scrub that kitchen floor. Now."

"Yes sir," the blonde agreed glumly. He'd have to wait until later to find out whether Jesse and Luke worked things out.


	31. That's Just Dumb

_To those that celebrate the turkey holiday - enjoy!_

_And since I have my own sort of ritual with regard to this holiday (involving cranberries, but not fowl), I started to think about what in the fanfic world I am thankful for. Well, readers and reviewers, of course, but more than that? Everyone who shares their stories, providing me with hours of fun and mental images that will not quit (and are frequently drool inducing)!_

_So, thanks one and all._

_Now back to your regularly scheduled programming, which goes something like: Don't own, don't earn, but I do have a good time along the way, though!_

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**Chapter 31 – That's Just Dumb**

It was dark as Jesse crossed into the farmyard, but he knew every dip and bump on his property, and he didn't need light to get him from the fields to the barn. The hurricane that'd passed through Hazzard a good six months ago now had redistributed things somewhat, and he'd had to learn some new geography after it was gone. But it hadn't taken him long to do so, and the old man was surefooted as he made his way towards the dim glow coming from inside the wooden structure in front of him. As he got closer he could see his oldest nephew's silhouette in the light of the oil lamp he'd lit. The boy was tending to Maudine with a thorough gentleness that only Luke possessed.

Watching him for awhile, quietly, Jesse realized how much he'd missed the boy. All the time that Luke was gone, Jesse had felt the pain of Luke's absence, but somehow he'd submerged that feeling in trying to keep Bo on an even keel. And, if he was totally honest, he'd also buried it in anger, which he'd allowed to silently build within him until he'd let it out just an hour or so ago. As much as he'd told Luke that he wanted mealtime to be a happy homecoming, he hadn't been ready to let it be one, any more than his nephew had. They needed to resolve things first, and not just for Luke's sake. For as much as that boy hid his feelings, even from himself sometimes, he'd learned that little trick from his guardian. While Jesse's method was entirely different, obscuring what hurt him with anger instead of silence, the overall end result was the same.

But the old man had an advantage over Luke. While he struggled to express his worry in a positive way, Jesse was very good at expressing love. He'd have to use that particular skill tonight, he was sure. No need to overwhelm his oldest with it right now, though.

"How's she lookin'?" the patriarch asked, announcing his presence in the process.

Luke glanced up nervously, then returned his attention to the mule. "She's ready to go when you are."

"I'm thinkin' to get started in the next couple of days," Jesse answered. "It'll give you a little bit longer to get healthy."

Misty blue eyes widened in surprise, then quickly resumed their normal, calm gaze. "I'm fine, Uncle Jesse."

Taking Maudine's reins, Jesse led her back into the stall. Luke suddenly found himself standing there with no mule to hide behind. It was about as comfortable as those nightmares he'd had in his teens, where he would find himself standing at the front of the church, facing the congregation and singing with the choir – and totally naked.

"Come here, Luke," Jesse invited, sitting on a bale of hay. Not surprising Jesse in the least, his oldest charge chose to perch on another bale, directly across from the old man, and out of easy reach. The younger children both would have elected to cuddle close to Jesse, sharing his bale. "Bo tells me you been sick. Is he wrong?"

"No, sir," the brunette answered meeting his uncle's eye for just long enough to make it clear that he was telling the truth, then looking away again.

"He also tells me you wasn't havin' no fun out there."

"He's right about that, too," Luke confessed.

"Luke, I need you to tell me what you was thinkin'. I want to understand this. Besides yourself, the one you really put at risk was Bo, an' he seems to have forgiven you for that. I want to, too." When his words were met with silence, the wise old man prompted him gently, "Talk to me, Luke."

"There ain't much to explain, Jesse. You ain't gonna like my reasoning…"

"Try me, boy," Jesse said, his voice somehow soft with encouragement, yet hard enough to indicate that Luke had better start talking, and now.

"When I came home for Christmas, all I could see was all the ways that this place wasn't home no more. The barn is smaller," he admitted aloud for the first time. "The land don't look the same without trees. The house still ain't right. And y'all made such a nice meal that night, but I saw that the refrigerator didn't have no other meat in it, and the pantry was pretty bare…"

"We've had hard times before, Luke. You know that."

The brunette shook his head. "I know we've had bad crops before. Or we've needed to make repairs to the house or one of the barns. But not everything at once like that. Everything I looked at was either gone or it wasn't as good as it used to be…"

"It takes time, after a major event like that storm, to put things back together. You ain't seen anything like that in your lifetime, but I have. This wasn't like a hail storm that just damages crops. This was a killing wind. Kills crops, kills hopes, and could even have killed you boys."

If the words were meant to calm Luke down, they failed. "I know that Uncle Jesse, I know that! I almost did get us killed…" Luke said, getting up and pacing away, his back to his uncle. Hand resting on a weight bearing beam, Luke stopped and tried to pull himself together. His uncle didn't give him a chance. Feeling his guardian's gentle hand on the back of his neck, the oldest Duke cousin lost his battle with his emotions. With more pressure than it would have taken for Bo or Daisy, the old man forced his oldest to turn around and come into his arms.

"Seems to me we need to start from the very beginning," Jesse said, after a few moments. "Come on, son, sit with me."

Luke almost choked on the term of endearment that Jesse used for him, but he managed to sit with his uncle on the bale that the old man had led him to.

Giving Luke a minute to get control of himself, Jesse finally said, "Ain't neither you nor Bo talked about what happened during the storm. And I guess I ain't asked. It was enough knowin' you was all right. But now I need you to tell me about that day."

Luke nodded. He'd always known that this would come up at some point, and it seemed like he had put it off as long as he could.

"You pretty much know the first half. We was in that little bathroom, and we kinda thought the house was comin' down around us. But after you called, we was able to figure out that it maybe wasn't as bad as it sounded," he said, looking up at his uncle for the first time during this part of the discussion. "It… really helped that you called us, Jesse."

The old man nodded, accepting Luke's thinly veiled thanks.

"An' then the eye came, so we decided to see just how bad it was. When we got out front and saw the barn… I wasn't sure it would stand through the second half. An' Bo, he'd hurt his ankle the day before so…" Luke swallowed hard. Confession time.

"Come on, boy," Jesse encouraged gently.

"I… we… did what you told us not to. We lost sight of each other. I was out here tryin' to stabilize the barn, an' he was watchin' the skies from the porch. An' before either of us knew what had happened, it started up again. Bo came lookin' for me, but he shouldn'ta been tryin' to walk… or run…" Luke stopped.

"You both survived, Luke. Whatever it is you're hesitating to tell me, I'm grateful you're both okay. It ain't as bad as you think," Jesse consoled.

Luke shook his head. "I guess I know that. I was just so scared… not for me, but for him. He shouldn'ta been out there. He fell – and when he went down… I wasn't sure I'd find him."

"But you did," Jesse answered.

"Yeah, I did, and I couldn't take him back to the house, not hurt like he was, and not as bad as the wind was blowin'. So we spent the second half of the storm out here. He was shakin' so bad…"

"He's fine, Luke. Whatever you done to protect yourselves out here, you done it well, because you're both all right," Jesse said, pulling Luke close before wincing in sympathy. The barn was certainly a terrifying place to be in a storm like David. Jesse had a few secrets of his own with regard to that hurricane. Like the fact that he had stayed awake the entire night and the following day, watching the television. Through the miracle of modern electronics he'd seen, probably better than either of his boys, just how devastating the wind had been, how much rain had fallen, how many people had been hurt. A few had even been killed. "You need to let yourself off the hook, boy. You did good, son."

Luke tolerated his uncle's comforting arms for a few minutes longer, then pulled away. "M'sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to start cryin' like that."

Jesse chuckled. "Oh, I know, Luke. You would never do that on purpose." The white-haired man allowed his nephew to pull himself together. "So let's see," Jesse finally continued, ticking items off on his heavy digits. "Your crimes are: you didn't protect your cousin well enough, you didn't protect the house well enough, you didn't protect the barn well enough and you didn't protect the crops well enough. Am I gettin' this right so far?"

His oldest nephew nodded, accepting the charges as presented.

"An' let me see if I got this next part right. Your punishment for all these things was that you had to figure out a way to raise the money to fix everything and make sure we was all taken care of… by yourself?"

"Well, I didn't quite think of it in those terms. But yeah I guess that's right," Luke answered, waiting for Jesse to pronounce his own sentence. The earnestness in Luke's blue eyes stopped his uncle for a second, but only that long.

"Well, that's just dumb, Luke."

The only response was a confused noise from somewhere deep in his oldest nephew's throat.

"It's dumb, thinkin' you had to do a penance for not bein' able to keep a hurricane from doin' damage. I mean, that's like blamin' yourself because the moon's so bright tonight. You got about as much control over the moon as you do the wind," Jesse reminded him.

"So you're callin' me dumb," Luke said, staying serious for just a moment before a slight snicker escaped from his lips.

"Well, not all the time," Jesse agreed, seeing the humor. "Just about this." The old man, too, let out a snort. The two Dukes began to laugh wholeheartedly, much harder and longer than the joke called for. They were both just relieved to be doing something other than arguing. Finally, they sobered.

"Son, one dumb thing leads to another, though. I ain't really callin' you dumb. You know you ain't. But thinkin' the way you was about having to fix what you didn't break… it led you to doing somethin' really dumb."

"I guess," Luke said, looking down.

"Lukas," Jesse said, and the young man flinched. Here it came. "You know that I love you, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," his nephew whispered, head so low that he was speaking into his own shirt.

Jesse turned and put his hands on the younger man's shoulders, but did not force him to look up. Luke was different from his youngest cousin, and never did respond well to having his chin forcibly lifted.

"No, I mean, you really know it, don't you? That I love you even if you don't have some kind of super-strength that can stop hurricanes? And I love you even if you can't earn enough to support us all?" Luke didn't answer. "Do you know that I love you enough that I would rather you was here, with the family, instead of off in the woods, workin' yourself sick?" Jesse pulled his silent nephew into his arms. Luke always took everything so hard. Bo's little insight into his cousin had prompted an even bigger one in Jesse.

"You know what? All those years ago, I took you in because I loved you, Luke, not because I had to. And you've already paid me back ten times over, just by lovin' me and your cousins back, with everything you got. You may not say it all the time, but we know it just by what you do. You don't owe me nothin' boy. Not a new barn or a new porch or a new crop." The youngster in his arms was crying again, but trying hard to hide it. Jesse smiled. "I ain't gonna make you stay here with me, Luke, but I really hope you will. Me and your cousins, we'd miss you somethin' fierce if you left us again."

With the quietest sniff he could manage, Luke answered, "I ain't goin' nowhere."

"Good," Jesse answered, closing his eyes and pretending that he couldn't feel Luke's tears dampening his shirt. "Good."

And as he opened his eyes to look across the lantern-lit barn over the curls on his older nephew's head, Jesse was left with a difficult question. How was he supposed to punish a boy that already felt so wretched?


	32. As Rough as That Day Was

_First of all, I have to say just how relieved I am that y'all have forgiven Luke. For awhile there I thought you might just chip in together on some rope to string him up. And then (as Ashti pointed out to me) the rest of the Duke family would have to come after you!_

_Since I have some ugly work weeks coming up, I am going to try to push through posting a couple of more chapters now. So they might come thick and fast until the end of this story, or they might dribble out - depending on how successful I am._

_Thanks to everyone for sticking with me through this long, long story. _

_I don't own the characters or the settings, only the plot and the words._

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Chapter 32 – As Rough as That Day Was… 

Bo was sitting on the small back porch that he'd built last December, both arms around his female cousin. For now they were resting in silence, just enjoying their closeness. Studying the moon, Bo allowed himself to realize exactly how much he'd missed the warmth that was Daisy.

First, they'd sent her away for the hurricane. Bo didn't regret that at all. He and Luke had been smart about that part. But she and Jesse had been gone longer than they'd expected, and that had been hard. And even after she'd returned to Hazzard, it seemed that poor Daisy had gotten the short end of the stick. Bo had been so wrapped up in Luke heading off to Valdosta, and then even more absorbed in his oldest cousin's disappearance and arguing with his uncle about it, that he hadn't let Daisy get close to him.

"You know I love you, don't you Daisy-girl?" he asked.

Mussing his blonde curls, the young woman laughed. "Bo Duke, did you go and get into Jesse's 'medicinal' 'shine? Of course I do. And I love you right back."

"Nah, I ain't drunk," Bo said with a small giggle. They sat in comfortable silence for awhile, Daisy's head resting on her tall cousin's shoulder. Although Jesse had sent Bo to scrub the kitchen floor, it turned out that Daisy had already used her own nervous energy to do so. She'd convinced the blonde that as long as the job was already done, they might as well sit out on the porch and enjoy the moonrise. Bo had readily agreed, knowing that the fact that the porch was within reasonable listening distance from the barn was not coincidental. If Luke and Jesse were going to have it out, both younger cousins wanted to know about it.

"You gonna let me off the hook about Luke?" the youngest Duke asked.

"For now," Daisy allowed. "But only 'til he tells me his part. Then you gotta tell me everything he left out."

"Deal," Bo agreed. His oldest cousin wouldn't mind that arrangement, he was pretty sure. Luke had always counted on Bo to say the things that Luke himself could not.

"Seems awful quiet in there," Daisy said, giving voice to what both of them were thinking.

Bo nodded and squeezed her a little closer to him. "I wish I knew whether that was good or bad."

"Luke was so pale at dinner," Daisy observed.

Bo just nodded, keeping his vow not to say anything until Luke did.

"Course, Uncle Jesse didn't look too great neither," she giggled. It wasn't often that they got to see their uncle looking so nervous.

* * *

Luke was exhausted. He hadn't been well, it was true. The prescription that he still took seemed to make him almost as tired as being sick had. And tonight, it must have all caught up with him. It was early yet, but he was in the bedroom that he shared with Bo, getting ready to call it a night. He wasn't sleeping, though, and instead of getting under the covers, he sat on the edge of his bed, awaiting the inevitable. In a moment, the door opened, and his kid cousin entered. Luke smiled; he could have set his watch by this. 

With an answering, sheepish grin the blonde asked, "How you doin', cuz?"

"I'm okay, Bo," Luke answered, honestly.

"Did you get a chance to talk to Daisy? She was worried about you."

"Yeah, I told her enough to make her hit me on the head a couple more times," he half-smiled, rubbing the area in question. "She don't pull no punches, our cousin. And that ring of hers ain't exactly a pleasure when it goes bangin' into your skull. Anyways, you can tell her the rest later."

"She'll keep until tomorrow," Bo said, making his priorities clear by toeing off his boots and sitting cross-legged next to his cousin. "I guess Jesse didn't tell you to leave again."

"Nope," Luke said with a small chuckle. "He said he'd forgive me this time, on account of I was thinkin' 'dumb.' But he made it clear that there ain't to be a next time."

Bo nodded. "I couldn't have said it better, myself."

"And he made me explain exactly how wrong I was in about ten different ways."

"You admitted you was wrong?" Bo asked with mock incredulity.

But Luke declined to joke about it. "Yeah, cousin, I was. I kept convincing myself that I was makin' a big sacrifice for y'all. But I was also bein' selfish, in a way. I… kinda had to work real hard not to think about how much me leavin' might hurt you. I just wanted to make everything all right, you know, money-wise. But everyone's feelings – I tried to ignore those. And that was wrong."

"Aw, Luke," Bo said, for once at a loss for words. His cousin never admitted to being wrong, and especially never admitted to knowing he'd caused others emotional distress. The younger boy had looked up to Luke for so long that he'd even begun to admire his cousin's flaws. But suddenly he found himself feeling as though he was watching Luke grow up a little, right before his eyes. This was a surprise.

"Bo," Luke asked, his slightly agitated body language indicating a shift in subject, "Do you ever think about the hurricane? Not preparin' for it or what happened after it, but the storm itself?"

"Yeah," Bo admitted. "A lot."

"Jesse asked me about it tonight. I got me a feelin' he's gonna ask you, too, when he gets a chance. So you might wanna be prepared to talk about it," Luke warned.

"I don't mind, Luke," the blonde answered, not surprising his cousin at all.

With a deep inhalation, Luke asked, "What's the first thing you think of, when you remember the storm?"

"Honestly, cuz, you're gonna think it's silly," Bo told him.

"Maybe not," his older cousin answered with a smile. Bo had always had a different way of looking at things, and Luke usually enjoyed these interesting explorations of the extraordinary logic of his little cousin's mind.

"Mostly I think about when it was first startin' and we watched it from the porch, and then we came inside and talked and played games. It was scary, but we could forget that, sittin' there, talkin' about when we was kids. I told you it was silly," Bo said, his face coloring slightly.

"It ain't silly," Luke said, nudging Bo with his elbow. "It's just like you. You'd always forget the scrape on your knee right away, but you'd remember for days that Aunt Lavinia kissed it and made it all better."

Bo smiled and stretched, getting comfortable on Luke's bed. "What about you, cousin? What part of the storm do you think about?"

"Gettin' caught when the eye ended," Luke said, not looking at his cousin. In contrast to Bo's relaxed pose, Luke was poised on the edge of the bed, as if he might run at any moment.

The blonde nodded. "Must've been scary to be up on the ladder when that happened."

Luke let the air that was inside his lungs out so rapidly that it sounded like a laugh, but quickly turned into a cough. Patting his older cousin on the back, Bo waited for the coughing fit to pass. As it slowed, the blonde kept his arm around Luke. The other boy's face was red with the effort to breathe.

"That ain't what I was talkin' about," Luke finally admitted, voice a little raw. "I meant that moment when I came around the barn and saw you out there in all that wind and sideways rain, and then I watched you go down. You went under the water, Bo. I wasn't sure I would find you."

"It wasn't but knee deep," Bo said. "Before I could even pull myself out of it, I felt you in there with me, hauling me up. But even if you hadn't, I wouldn't have exactly drowned out there, Luke."

"I guess," his older cousin answered. "Jesse says I gotta let that stuff go, but I can't, not unless I know you're okay with it." Luke's face was still red, though his coughing fit was long gone.

"Okay with what?" Bo asked in complete astonishment. "Okay with me bein' so clumsy you hadda come and pull me in out of the storm?"

"No, just okay with all the mistakes I – we – made," Luke replied, eyes averted, face redder by the moment.

Bo smiled slightly. "As rough as that day was, Lukas, I think today's been harder on you. All these emotions you wish you wasn't feelin'…" Bo gave his cousin a gentle squeeze.

Luke didn't say anything, but his eyes, still focused across the room and not at Bo, betrayed the slightest hint that he'd like to smack his cousin for that.

"All right, I'm sorry. I'm more than okay with it, cousin. When I saw that tree branch smashed into Jesse's room, I thought how lucky we was not to have been in the house. I mean, I wouldn't have felt safe in here. But in Tilly, after I started to warm up, well, I felt really safe. So no, I ain't holdin' any grudges about the decisions we made that day." Bo felt a slight relaxation of Luke's shoulder muscles under his own right arm.

With a gentle tug, Bo pulled his cousin down to lie cross-wise on the bed next to him, legs still dangling off the edge. When they were younger, their legs shorter and bodies more flexible, they would lie there facing one another, legs curled behind and heads resting on bent arms. Now the position was considerably more awkward, but Luke didn't complain. He was tired, and staring up at the ceiling that he'd studied most of the nights of his life was very comforting. He folded his arms behind his head and relaxed.

"It's good to be home," he admitted.

Bo did turn on his side and prop up his head, the better to see Luke's face. "Cuz?" he said carefully. "You know how you're always sayin' that I need to slow down and think more?"

"Only 'cause you do, Bo," Luke said, tone teasing, and a slight smile on his face.

"Maybe. But I think you need to think less. Sometimes you think so hard, you stop makin' sense," Bo informed him, the openness in his dark blue eyes indicating his seriousness on the subject.

The slight twist to Luke's face made it clear that he thought his cousin had been spending a little too much time in the sun.

"All right, it's true, but you ain't gonna listen to that part. But Luke," Bo paused for a minute, really wanting these next words to come out right so they would be understood by his cousin. "Your stomach. It needs you to think less, and have more fun. Aunt Lavinia always said you had a belly made of steel unless you was worryin' about somethin'."

Eyes traveling along a ceiling crack that a childhood version of himself used to imagine looked like a salamander, Luke answered his cousin. "I can't stop, not until we figure out how we're gonna get through this growing season. We still got a mortgage to pay and ourselves to feed."

"Yeah, but you said an important word there, Luke. We. We'll figure it out. Together. And, as Uncle Jesse would say, the mornin' will be soon enough. We ain't gotta do it right now," Bo half-scolded, doing a fair impression of the old man.

"Gonna have to be the afternoon. Uncle Jesse's makin' me go see Doc Petticord, first thing," Luke confessed.

Bo snickered. "Good for him. I didn't like that doc in Sweetwater. I kinda want you to get checked out real good, too."

Luke nodded, absently. "Bo? Can you take me? Jesse don't want me to go alone, in case the doc gives me something I can't drive with. An'… I don't really want Jesse to come with me. Would you?"

Bo smiled, gently. He knew Luke better than anyone. The older boy hated trips to the doctor to begin with, though he liked Doc Petticord just fine when they crossed paths in Hazzard Square. It was only when the man put a stethoscope around his neck that Luke would start to shy away. And his cousin couldn't stand for anyone to treat him as though he was sick, even when he could hardly stay upright. Bo was the exception to Luke's rule; twenty-odd years of sharing a room had seen to that.

"You got it, Luke. An' even though I want you to get checked out real good, I'm sure he's gonna say you're fine. You ain't near as bad as you were a week ago," Bo said, amazing himself with the realization of how recently his cousin had been sick. "Except last night, but now that you and Jesse have worked things out…"

"I don't need to go to the doc, I'm just doin' it for Jesse," Luke answered with finality, not wanting to revisit his recent illness.

"I know it, Luke. And while you're doin' things for people, would you do somethin' for me?" the blonde asked, with a slight smile.

"Depends, Bo. I know I owe you, but I ain't doin' your chores for five months." Until he said it, he hadn't realized that, between his time in Valdosta and the months in Sweetwater, he'd been gone that long.

"Nah," Bo said, sitting up. "All I want for now is that you get a good night's sleep. I know you ain't really slept right in a long time." The blonde stood, offering a hand to Luke.

"You got that right," the brunette answered, accepting the help up, in order to finish his preparations for bed.

Bo yanked slightly harder than necessary, only stopping when he'd pulled his cousin into a bear hug. "Welcome home, cousin."


	33. A Task He Was Terrible At

_Told you these next chapters might come thick and fast!_

_Don't own, don't earn, don't have time for much by way of author's notes this time! (I can hear you all jumping for joy at that last part...)_

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**Chapter 33 – A Task He Was Terrible At**

"Told you I was fine, Bo."

"Seems to me I was the one told you that doc would say you was okay. You woulda heard that from him sooner if you coulda just sat still and let him examine you."

"Aw, Bo, he always complains that I won't sit still, but I do. It's just something he likes to pick on me about from when I was little. Just like he picks on you about the time you tried to fake the Bubonic Plague to get out of that vocabulary test in the third grade," Luke snickered. "Only you would try to get yourself quarantined."

"I was just a kid then, Luke. That was before I knew that little girls grow up to be fine young women. I'd never do that now. Wouldn't want to get stuck inside on a Friday night."

"I don't know, cuz. Mrs. Miller was scary. I might have faked the plague if I hadn't studied, too."

"Nah, Luke, she liked you," Bo complained. "All I ever heard about was how wonderful you was, and why wasn't I more like you."

"That's one of the great unanswered questions that troubles mankind," Luke replied, earning himself a gentle shove towards the General. The boys had just left the doctor's office and were about to head into the heart of town to see Cooter. The mechanic still didn't know that L.B.'s sighting had been accurate, and the boys needed to thank him for leading Bo to Luke, but they had other reasons for the visit as well.

It seemed like they might never get the chance to get to those other things, because when they arrived at the garage, Cooter jumped on Luke full force, nearly knocking him flat on his back before constricting him in a hug.

"Lukas, you old cuss!" he half yelled. "So that _was_ you in Sweetwater, huh?"

"Yep," Bo answered, "It was him. Thanks, Cooter, for sendin' me out there."

"No problem," their friend answered, finally turning Luke loose with a swat to his gut. "Do you have any idea how worried you had us?"

"Yeah," Bo said, stepping between the two old friends. "He does." Bo had no desire to hurt the mechanic's feelings, but he wasn't going to let him harass Luke, nor smack him on the stomach again, even if his intentions were friendly.

Cooter's grease covered skin was pretty thick, though, and he didn't take any offense. He'd seen these two boys watch out for each other their whole lives. He wasn't going to worry about them doing it now.

"All right, then. I don't gotta tell you," he said, agreeably, slinging one arm around each Duke boy, and squeezing affectionately. It had been too long since he'd last had the chance to do that.

Confident that the mechanic wasn't going to ask any questions he didn't want to answer yet, Luke grinned and tapped his good friend on the jaw with a light fist. "It's good to see you, too, buddy. But this ain't entirely a social call."

"Oh, yeah? Is the General there treatin' you okay?" Cooter asked Bo, assuming that was what this visit had to be about, even though the blonde hadn't had any complaints about the stock car last week.

"No," the younger Duke answered. "He's in fine shape. So fine he wants to race! Anything comin' up? Especially something with a cheap entry fee?"

"Naw, boys," Cooter said with a snort. "You guys done killed the Hogg Derby. Old Boss ain't never gonna hold it again, not since you all walked away with 'his' money."

"Oh, he'll hold it again," Luke said, half a grin on his face. "Soon as he figures out how to keep us out." But there was little amusement in either of the Duke boys' eyes. They needed some kind of income, and that was the real reason for coming into the garage.

"But…" Cooter was not dumb, though there were those that mistook him for being so. And in truth, despite his common CB greeting, he kind of liked it that way. "I do know of a short haul trucking gig. Won't last long, but it'll help."

"When, Cooter?" Luke asked, looking slightly pained.

"Startin' Monday, for a couple of weeks. You interested? I can hook you up with them…"

"Can't," Bo answered for them both, looking every bit as unhappy as Luke. "We're startin' our spring planting in a couple of days."

"We'll still be doin' that for a good week and a half," Luke continued for him. "An' as much as we could use some quick cash… the crop is more important. Without that, we might as well give up the farm right now."

"But keep us in mind, Coot, if you hear of something else," Bo requested, favoring his friend with a smile before the boys said goodbye and headed back to their orange car.

Cooter Davenport was much better known for his fun loving personality than his tendency toward anger, but in reality, his temper was as hot as any of the Dukes'. And right now, he was livid. Though his family had given up farming a couple of generations ago, the greasy young man was still a part of a farming community, and he'd seen enough of his fellow Hazzardites suffering over the six months since Hurricane David. He was going to fix it if it killed him.

Straightening his back into a hard shell, the young man stalked across Hazzard Square, making his way into the County Courthouse. Oblivious to the sheriff's attempts to stop him, Cooter strode into the office of the County Commissioner, with one sputtering Rosco Coltrane on his heels.

"Boss," he growled. "You have got to do something about the families in this here town. Most of 'em can't figure a way to feed themselves right now, much less get back on their feet!" He knew he was starting in the middle, but he also knew that he didn't have to walk Hogg through all the steps. The cringing look that the commissioner gave him before he yanked his cigar from his mouth and opened wide in preparation to bluster, told Cooter that the man in white knew full well what he was talking about.

"Cooter Davenport, you just hush," Rosco said, pre-empting the bald man's words. "Why Boss there, he ain't gotta – ijit!" The sheriff stopped cold as furious blue eyes turned his way. Cooter said nothing, simply pinning the older man with his gaze for a moment before returning his concentration to Boss.

The older man eyed his semi-protective sheriff for a moment before turning his attention to Cooter. The youth of the commissioner's day would never have been this impetuous or disrespectful, of that he was certain. But times had changed, and over the length of his career, he'd been sassed by most of the young people in Hazzard, including the ragamuffin standing in front of him. This didn't mean he had to like it, though.

"Cooter Davenport," the white-clad man said, much more slowly and deliberately than his counterpart had. "I don't know what you think you're doin' comin' in here and tellin' me what I gotta do. Seems to me I could put you out of business," he threatened quietly.

Cooter laughed. He was a reckless man, and hard to scare, at least right at this moment. "Boss, you couldn't put me out of business if you wanted to. You ain't got no one to replace me with. And with the shape this town is in, you couldn't get a new mechanic to move here for nothin'." And even as he spoke, a thought occurred to him. "In fact, unless you do something to make things better for the people of Hazzard, I ain't gonna fix your patrol cars no more." It was an interesting risk. The only one who stood to lose more than Boss did from that little threat, was Cooter. But if it was what he had to do in order to get the commissioner to take some action, he'd let himself lose everything. "So what's it gonna be, Boss?"

"Dat! It's gonna be you leavin' right now, is what it's gonna be. Rosco, do your job for once. Get this riff raff out of here."

Sucking up his gut and swaggering his weight from one foot to the other, the aging lawman began to huff. "Now you listen here. You just, gij, you just start movin' on out of here or I'm gonna, ijit, cuff ya, and then I'm gonna stuff ya down there in them jail cells so fast it'll…"

"Make my head spin. I got it, Rosco," Cooter said, heading for the door. "I ain't touchin' a single county car until I hear different from you, Boss," the angry mechanic said, instead of goodbye.

As soon as the younger man was gone, that irksome little smile of Rosco's bloomed on his face.

"That little pipsqueak," he chirped cheerfully. "Gij! Just imagine him threatenin' the likes of you. Don't you worry, little bitty buddy, I ain't gonna let that slimy grease monkey get away with that, khee!"

Big, brown eyes focused on the man that was trying to protect him. "Oh Rosco, never mind," the balding man said, tiredly.

"Never… gij, what do you mean never mind?"

"I mean go out and pretend to enforce laws, but leave Cooter alone, you hear me?"

Rosco shuffled out the door muttering under his breath. "I'd cuff and stuff you, ya little fat meadow-muffin, if I thought your big old belly would fit through the cell door. Ijit."

The man in white heard the insubordinate words escaping from his lackey's lips, but he didn't worry about that for the moment. Chin on hand, the commissioner set to a task he was terrible at: thinking.

* * *

Looking up after saying the blessing, Jesse Duke smiled. All the chairs at his kitchen table were full. Bo was grabbing for the potatoes even as the last syllable was leaving Jesse's lips, and enduring an elbow from Luke. Daisy's eyes twinkled as she watched her cousins from across the table. The Duke clan had worries, there was no doubt about that. But the family was all in one place.

"You boys settle down now," their uncle admonished. It wouldn't do to let his kids get wild, even if they were glad to be together. All three of them needed to remember that there were rules in this house.

One of which was the sanctity of mealtime, which was why the old man grumbled when the phone rang in the middle of the meal. He tried to ignore it, but found he couldn't, so Jesse rose to answer it, insisting that his children keep eating. Even as he spoke on the phone, he watched Luke. That boy was eating better, but he wasn't fully healthy yet. Jesse would wait a few more days to plant.

After a brief conversation, the slightly troubled man joined his family at the table again.

"What's the matter Uncle Jesse?" Bo asked. Leave it to his youngest to pick up on his mood.

"Nothin' you need to worry about, I'm sure. J.D. needs to talk to me," he said, steeling himself for the response that he knew was coming. The three younger Dukes didn't disappoint him, talking over one another in an effort to out-complain each other about what Hogg might be up to now.

"Now just simmer down, you three. I don't know what he's up to neither, but us sittin' around here talkin' bad about him ain't gonna do anyone any good," the patriarch reasoned. "So as soon as we're done eatin', I'll just go see what he wants."

"We're goin' with you, Jesse," Luke informed him with finality.

"No, you ain't. You're gonna stay right here and water down them fields out there. We ain't gonna sow for a couple more days, but I want that soil good and wet when we do."

"Yes sir," Bo answered for them all, telltale indigo eyes unhappy but obedient.

* * *

Of course the watering didn't take three of them. It didn't even take two, not really. Daisy stayed behind, having plenty of household chores to tend to, especially now that all three of the men in her family were back under the same roof. The boys went out and made short work of the watering, before heading back to the house. Without discussing it, they stopped at the rear stoop and didn't enter the dwelling.

Taking a seat, Bo patted the spot next to him in invitation, even as he began to grumble. "Jesse shoulda let us go with him. What if Boss knows what you was up to out there in Sweetwater? He could be settin' you up."

"Don't think so, Bo," Luke answered matter-of-factly. "If that was the case, he wouldn't bother with callin' Jesse, he'd just send his dipsticks out here to come and pick me up." Both boys snorted at the term of endearment that Luke had used for the law of Hazzard.

"Well, maybe he's settin' Jesse up. He'll put him in jail just so's we can't pay the mortgage," Bo said, letting his imagination lead him where it wanted.

"Shoot, he don't need Jesse in jail to keep that from happenin'. We can't pay the mortgage anyways," Luke reminded him.

"We know that, but he don't. Or maybe he's…"

"Bo, we could guess all day and never figure it out. Let's just wait for Uncle Jesse, okay?"

"You ain't any fun at Christmas, neither, cousin. 'Don't shake those presents, Bo, you'll find out what they are in the morning,'" the blonde answered in a mock-sulk.

"Speakin' of Christmas," Luke said carefully, "I'm guessing this here porch was supposed to be a Christmas present for me, back in December?"

"Sorta. It was for me, too. We've had some of our best moments out here, Luke," Bo answered. "Sorry it ain't much, though. Nothin' like what used to be here."

"No, it ain't the same. But it's still the place you gave me my favorite birthday present ever," Luke said, proving that he, too, had a sentimental streak, "Makin' me your brother." He paused for a moment, remembering how nervous Bo had been all those years ago, offering Luke his love, not sure whether the older boy would accept it. What an awkward age the blonde had been, skinny legs way too long for the rest of his body, eyes huge with hope. A slight squint of his dark eyes was the only betrayal of pain he'd shown when they'd used Luke's knife to cut the fleshy part of his palm near the base of his thumb, and a moment later, when they'd clasped hands, the look on the younger boy's face had told Luke that this was more than a childhood ritual between the two of them. Uncle Jesse hadn't understood, but the boys didn't care. They were brothers now.

Without thinking, Luke reached out and mussed his cousin's curls.

"Maybe if we have a good year, we can expand it, though," Luke said, pulling himself out of the past and patting the floorboards. "I kinda like that it's open now, instead of covered. So we could just make it bigger…"

"Make it go from the wall of Jesse's room out to the edge of the house. I like that idea."

"Me, too," Luke agreed. "Maybe next year…"

"Wait here," Bo interrupted, as he disappeared into the house. A moment later, he was back with their guitars. Taking his with a smile, Luke was at surprised how quickly his fingers performed the process of tuning it. Having only played once since last summer had taken but a minor toll on his skills.

Leaning back against the weathered boards of the old house, one blonde head and one brunette bent over well worn fret boards, making harmony in the traditional sense, as they waited to learn whether the County of Hazzard was going to be cruel or kind to them on this day.


	34. You've Got Homework

_Well, y'all, here we are, at those last few chapters - the ones I thought would probably get redone. Aside from the fact that time hasn't been on my side with regard to rewriting, no other ideas came to me over these past few months. And besides, considering my current state of work-distress, I now find it somewhat amusing what I do to poor Luke, here. Of course, ol' Luke would probably clobber me if he could, and so might y'all._

_So - the obvious - don't own 'em, don't earn from 'em, so don't sue me..._

_And, of course, thanks to all who have stuck with me throughout. You may soon be saying - I stayed with you for 33 chapters for_ that?

_But, with no further adieu..._

**

* * *

**

Chapter 34 – You've Got Homework 

"Now Jesse, don't you give me a hard time," Boss Hogg warned his one-time friend, even before Jesse Duke could find himself a seat.

"You're the one that said it was so all-fired important that I come over here, J.D. I don't know what's goin' on, and I ain't gonna promise you not to give you a hard time until I do," Jesse informed the squat little man that was sitting behind the oversized desk in his courthouse office. For some reason, Hogg had chased his sheriff out of the room, and Jesse didn't know whether he thought this was a good sign or a bad one.

"Dat! All right, Jesse Duke, just listen to me now. I got a little situation an' I'm gonna need your help."

The Duke patriarch got very worried. If Jefferson Davis Hogg was willing to admit that he needed Jesse's help, it must be a matter of life and death. "Is Lulu all right?" It was the first thing that came to his mind.

"Who?" The commissioner actually pulled his cigar out of his mouth to ask that one.

"Your wife, J.D. Is she sick or somethin'?"

"Oh, her. No Jesse, it ain't her. Dat! Just listen, don't talk none." There was no way he was going to get through this if Jesse didn't hush. It was almost more than he could do, asking for this man's assistance. "I need your help with another matter, more like business."

Acquiescing to Hogg's request that he stay silent, Jesse didn't speak. But the skeptical look on his face was worthy of his oldest nephew.

"All right, Jesse, quit lookin' at me like that!" The man snapped. This was too much for the Duke patriarch.

"I ain't allowed to talk, and I ain't allowed to look at you. So, tell me why you interrupted my meal with my family and made me come into town to not look at you nor talk to you?" If he hadn't been so annoyed, he would have laughed.

Boss Hogg sighed. His one-time friend could always bring him to his knees if he really tried. Fortunately for him, Jesse Duke was a respectful man, who didn't like to humiliate anyone, even an old rival like J.D.

"All right Jesse, it's like this. Remember how you was here asking after federal funds a couple months back?"

"And you was tellin' me we couldn't have any, yeah, I remember. You gonna tell me you was lyin'?" Jesse asked, resigned. He had to admit that it wouldn't surprise him at all if Boss had actually gotten emergency funds, but kept them for himself.

"No…" the man in white said, looking genuinely miserable. "It's really true. I can't get us no Federal funds. But Jesse? We sure need them. There just ain't no money circulatin' around this town. An' I've been hearin' talk about people leavin', headin' out to Atlanta to start over. They didn't do no better in the hurricane down there, but they got an economy now, because they got Federal funds."

"Well now, J.D., you're finally seeing the light. I was startin' to wonder if you ever would," Jesse chastised gently. "Sometimes I think your brains went the way of your hair. You used to be pretty smart."

"Now Jesse…"

"I ain't supposed to give you a hard time," Jesse said with a sigh. "All right, J.D., what do you need from me?"

"I need you to help me figure out how to get Federal funds into this county," Boss said. "They won't give 'em to me, but maybe they'll give 'em to you…"

The older men worked together for half the afternoon, making calls and finding their way through red tape. More than once, Jesse thought he might be forced to strangle the blustering commissioner, but before he had to resort to such measures, the Duke patriarch had an inspired thought. Calling Daniel Green from the Georgia Department of Emergency Management, Jesse at least knew that they'd reach a man that could be reasoned with.

The former 'shine runner did the talking. It had been more than obvious that Hogg irked the other man in just the few hours that Jesse had witnessed them together. And while Green could promise Jesse nothing, at least he was inclined to try to help. New forms would be sent for the townspeople of Hazzard to fill out. These forms were not applications for the traditional Federal Emergency Funds, but something appropriately called the "Hazard Mitigation Fund." It was technically a government grant, to be awarded on a case-by-case basis, meaning that paperwork would have to be completed for each farmer or homesteader. It would be a lot of work, but Jesse could see two benefits. The first, and most important, was that J.D. would be left out of the process entirely. He could neither ask for, nor receive any money, since the man in white was not a farmer and had experienced no losses. The other benefit would have to wait until the oldest Duke got home.

Jesse chuckled to himself at the thought.

* * *

"No one is going to jail," Jesse half-comforted, half-yelled at his kids, trying to get them to stop peppering him with questions. "Not unless I call Rosco here right now and tell him to lock the three of you up long enough to let me get a word in edgewise." Meeting eyes with each of the three of them, the old man couldn't help but be amused. They had all been in the kitchen when he arrived home, and Bo had started the chorus with his suggestion that Boss wanted to arrest Luke. Daisy, who clearly hadn't thought of that yet, had joined in the questioning. As the younger two kids began escalating in their guesses as to what the commissioner and his lackey sheriff might do to harm the Duke family, Luke had joined in the fray with his own thoughts, mostly that his younger cousins were wrong on each count they brought up. While Luke wasn't contributing any new ideas, he was definitely keeping the debate lively with his baritone contradictions. 

Finally hushing the three of them with his idle threat to get the sheriff, Jesse sat down at the table, prompting his kids to do the same and let him tell them about his visit to town.

"J.D. ain't plannin' on doin' anything you need to worry about. He's just finally bad off enough to swallow some pride and ask for a little help. Seems that the fact that there's no money circulatin' through the town hasn't escaped his notice." Jesse scowled at the snickers his words elicited. Though he'd put it humorously, he needed to remain a little stern with the cousins right now. Jefferson Davis Hogg was certainly a scourge upon the family, but the commissioner was their elder, and his kids would show the man some respect. Not much, but Jesse would see to it that they showed at least a little. "So he asked for my help to figure out how to get some funds for the county," Jesse concluded with a shrug, as if this was a common event.

"He asked for your help?" Bo asked, laughter bubbling up in him despite the glare coming from the head of the table.

"Yes, he did. And I gave it to him, so quit smilin' like a fool. You ought to know by now that when someone asks for your help you give it to them." It wouldn't do to let his boys know that he hadn't exactly been a perfect angel in dealing with J.D. If he gave those two an inch, they'd take more than a mile, no question about that. They'd take him all the way to Chickasaw and back before he even knew what had happened.

"All right, Uncle Jesse," Luke said, slinging an arm around Bo, and half threatening to cover the younger boy's mouth with his hand. "What did you help him do?"

"Well, we found some state money, but we're gonna have to do some work for it," Jesse announced, with a slight smile. "Or rather, you are. You wanted to help the family, right?"

"Yeah…" Luke answered warily. There was something in the twinkle of his uncle's eye that made him wonder what the old man was up to.

"Well here's your chance to help not only us, but all the other farmers of the county that're strugglin'. What we can get is called 'mitigation fund,' also known as a government grant. Which means we gotta write about why we need the money, and how it will be used to make the community stronger. It's about a twenty-five page form with a bunch of essay questions, I'm told," Jesse informed him. "You've got homework, Luke. Once you write one of those, it can probably be copied by everyone else, but you get to do the first one."

Luke tried, but just couldn't quite get ahold of the groan before it slipped out from between his teeth. At least he was able to keep himself from saying "I don't wanna," but barely. While he hadn't suffered quite as badly as Bo had in school, Luke was not exactly a stellar student, and homework had never been his first choice of an activity. Especially not writing.

"Did you say something, Luke?" Jesse asked, with a as much manufactured innocence as he could muster.

"No, sir," Luke answered, focusing hard on the fact that this was going to help his family keep the farm that had belonged to them for generations.

"I'll help you, Luke," Daisy offered.

"No you won't," Jesse butted in. "Because those forms won't be here until tomorrow. And the day after that, we're startin' to plant. Gonna need you out in the fields, Daisy-girl."

Jesse hadn't arrived at any of these decisions lightly. Luke was still not looking completely healthy, and while some hard work would ultimately be good for him, the youngster wasn't ready for it just yet. Jesse wanted a probably a week's worth of good, solid meals in Luke before the boy should be out there doing full days of labor. The process would be slower without him, but with Daisy's assistance out in the fields, it wouldn't be so bad. Besides, Luke still needed to learn something. Jesse hadn't quite been able to bring himself to punish the boy, but he hadn't wanted to let him off the hook, either.

And then there was the idea of taking government assistance at all. The old man had never done that, and really didn't care for the idea of doing it now. But as he had pointed out to his oldest, Hurricane David had contained a killing wind, one that had flattened the hopes of the town. It wasn't simply to save the Duke farm that he would have Luke do this, but to attempt to give the entire community a boost.

"Luke, I'll expect you to come out in the mornings and help us get started. But from ten in the mornin' until five in the afternoon, you're in here writing. After that, you can come work with us again into the evening, got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Don't sound so glum, boy. You've only got to do it until you get the whole thing done. Green said it shouldn't take more than a week," Jesse said, the angle of his jaw hinting at the tiniest of smiles. "An' you don't even have to do the numbers part, 'cause that's J.D.'s contribution. He's gonna lend us Emery Potter for that section."

"Yes, sir," Luke answered again, no happier. He might have been able to enjoy the mathematical aspects, at least. He'd always hated school essays, but arithmetic wasn't usually so bad.

"Yeah, Luke, don't sound so glum," Bo teased. "At least you'll be gettin' out of some manual labor."

"Keep it up Bo, and you'll be working beside him in here. Don't think I won't do it," Jesse warned. "I can always get Cooter to come work the fields with Daisy and me." It was a bluff, but he knew Bo wouldn't take a chance on calling it.

"Yes, sir," Bo answered, but as soon as his uncle's back was turned, he stuck out his tongue at his older cousin. In spite of himself, Luke had to laugh.


	35. Bring it On!

_Hey y'all - well they say that misery loves company, and I suppose that's why I chose to do this to poor Luke. At least I didn't give him a firm deadline. It's that "d" word that's got me putting this out here now, while I can. From here until the end of the year, there's plenty of "d" coming my way. Perhaps, as Luke suggests in the canon, I am in the wrong lane._

_Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this all along._ _Not only did it wind up being longer I than planned, it also took a few twists that even I didn't foresee. I appreciate that you all came along for this unusual ride._

_I don't own them, and as always, it's hard to let them go..._

* * *

**Chapter 35 – Bring it On!**

"Well, Luke my boy, have fun," Jesse advised, laying the thick envelope containing a sheaf of forms on the kitchen table. "Mr. Green says you can call him if you have any questions."

The oldest Duke cousin was bound and determined to get this over with as quickly and quietly as possible. So although it was already late afternoon, and the rest of the family wasn't due to start sowing the new crop until morning, Luke knew his homework would start right after dinner.

"Hey, cuz, it's the last night before plantin'. Come on," Bo complained, when he saw the brunette sitting back down at the kitchen table, pulling the heavy ream of papers out of the envelope. It was a Duke boy tradition to spend their last "free" evening at the Boar's Nest.

"Go on without me, Bo. You'll have a better chance of findin' a girl if I ain't there to distract them from you." If he wasn't looking forward to an evening spent writing a stupid grant, at least the older boy could get in a few decent shots against his cousin.

Bo had been about to beg, but decided against it. Instead, he got in a parting shot of his own. "Shoot, Luke, I'd tell 'em all you said 'hi,' but they'd just stare at me and ask 'Luke who?'" The blonde ducked out the front door before the pencil in Luke's hand could be lobbed in his general direction. "Temper, temper!" the older boy heard, coming from the far side of the door.

With a snicker and a headshake, the brunette settled down to work. By the time Bo came home a few hours later, Luke was thinking maybe this wouldn't be so bad. He was pretty sure he'd have it licked in half the time Jesse had allotted him.

Come day two he was really sure he was getting there, but day three was a setback. Trying to show the history of the revenue on a farm that had long grown corn for the purpose of manufacturing and selling illegal whiskey was a trick all in itself. When he joined his kin in the fields that afternoon with a moan of complaint about his predicament, Jesse reminded him that of the entire family, he was the best conniver. Luke simply needed to use those skills very carefully right now, because he couldn't lie, but he couldn't tell the truth.

"If there's anyone can do that, it's you, cousin," Bo said, his smile much too cheerful for Luke's tastes. "Remember that time you had to explain to Mr. Grainge why we was bringin' the twins back so late?"

Luke gave his cousin a meaningful look.

"What's that, Bo?" Jesse, ever alert, asked him.

"Nothin', he's just ramblin'," Luke said.

"Aw, it ain't that bad," the blonde began to explain, beaming at the memory. "You see, ol' Luke there…"

"Bo, you been out in the sun too much," Luke interrupted. "Maybe you need to go back to the house and take yourself a break. You could work on that grant for awhile," the older boy suggested.

"Never mind, Uncle Jesse. I don't rightly remember the story," Bo said, quickly.

Jesse made a point of looking hard at both of his nephews, but he already knew the tale. Luke had gotten the boys out of a jam that time, using a few clever words to tell the truth and lie at the same time. There wasn't a move that his boys made that Jesse didn't know. It was just that most of the time, as long as they could get themselves out of it without having to call on him, he'd let them believe that he hadn't heard about it already.

"Yeah," the old man said with a wink. "Use the same tactic you used on Elias Grainge."

The boys looked at each other with raised eyebrows and wisely said no more.

Day four found Luke pulling Jesse aside before breakfast.

"Daisy looks awfully tired, Jesse," he said quietly. "Seems like maybe she ought to stay here today and I should go help you out there," the young man suggested, gesturing to the fields in an abrupt manner that made it clear that they were far from the house, at least in Luke's current estimation.

The old man chuckled. "She's fine Luke, and you know it. She ain't doin' half the work she does at harvest, and she probably ain't workin' as hard out there as she would if she was back here, tryin' to keep the house up around you." He placed his hands on Luke's shoulders. "Son, there's lots of ways of helpin' your family. Sometimes it ain't as simple as bustin' your back workin' a farm -- or a still," he paused, searching the striking blue of Luke's eyes for understanding. "Sometimes it comes from using your head for some good, honest thinkin', not just trying to come up with the quickest fix you can."

The brunette sighed, nodded, and went back to the incredibly uninteresting task at hand.

Day five brought the kind of heavy rain to the farm that was very good for the newly planted seed, but not for continuing to sow. The family was stuck in the house with Luke, and none of them was enjoying it. Daisy, at least, chose to escape by grabbing an umbrella and heading into town to do some window shopping, since she had no money for the real kind. Jesse, meantime, slipped off to the barn to tend to the livestock. There was no reason he couldn't have sent Bo to do it, but he chose not to. Sometimes the moments he got to spend alone, just running his quandaries past Maudine, were the most peaceful part of the day. The mule didn't answer back; it was one of Jesse's favorite traits in the beast.

Bo was hovering around, trying desperately to find a way to distract Luke from his writing duty so that he could join the younger boy in something, anything, that would keep him occupied.

The brunette was sorely tempted, but he knew that the minute Jesse walked in, any reprieve would be over.

"Come here, Bo," Luke called. He'd been about to send the boy out to play in traffic, but suddenly he had a better idea. "The sooner I can get this done, the happier we'll both be. So here's some stuff that's got to be accounted for, like how many chickens we got and how many goats… you start fillin' out that part an' I'll be done faster."

"This ain't exactly how I planned to spend my day, Luke," the blonde complained.

"This ain't exactly how I planned to spend my week," Luke retorted. "Come on, cuz," the brunette pleaded quietly, honestly. "I miss workin' with you."

Bo rewarded his cousin's rare openness -- which he suddenly realized was not so rare anymore -- with one of his brightest smiles. "I'd rather be working the fields beside you, but if this is what you're stuck doin', well, I might as well do it, too," the youngster said, reaching out a hand and giving Luke's shoulder a squeeze.

When Jesse came in to see his two boys quietly working side-by-side, he was too touched by the scene to break it up.

_The middle-aged man had come through the door expecting to chastise Bo and Luke for being late with their afternoon chores. He knew they were young yet, but they needed to learn the priorities of farm life. When he came strutting into the house, though, he was surprised by the scene that met him. The boys were sprawled on the living room floor, much as he'd assumed, but they weren't playing with toy cars. Instead, they were on their bellies in front of a textbook, Bo with the end of his pencil between his teeth, listening as Luke carefully explained the meaning behind a word problem._

"_But I don't care which train will get to St. Louis first, cousin," the blonde grumbled._

"_No one cares, Bo, except the teacher. Thing is, if you can't figure out a way to give her the answer she wants…"_

"_She's gonna give me a bad grade, an' I'm gonna have a sore behind for a week. Okay. So what time does the first train leave Chicago again?"_

_Smiling gently, the boys' uncle tiptoed away, never letting on that he'd seen them there working together like that. _

And like he had done all those years ago, Jesse left his boys to their task.

Day six brought Luke to the end of his struggles. Heading out to the fields that Saturday afternoon, he was finally able to announce that he'd made his way through everything and was ready to turn the paperwork over to Emery Potter, so the comptroller could add a budget to the grant application. After that, Luke's semi-neat block lettering would be typed in by the secretary in Emery's office, and the forms could be sent to Mr. Green. If the Dukes got funded, Luke's words would be used over and over for the other farms in the area.

Bo grinned widely. He was getting his cousin back. Without thought, he jumped on Luke, letting the older boy catch him. Jesse just grinned and said, "I'm proud of you, boy."

Unfortunately for the oldest Duke cousin, the next day was Sunday, which meant more sitting still. Church had always been a mixed blessing to the Duke boys. It was a place where they had to sit quietly and be on their best behavior, which was something that had been a real challenge when they were little. They were only slightly better at it now. But it was always a refuge, as well. The pastor had seen them through so much, not the least of which had been the death of their aunt. And he'd always assured them, with a gentle hand, that they were forgiven for their sins. Their paths had strayed so often that knowing they were forgiven was a tremendous relief to those two. This week, however, Luke would have been happier if there had been no Sunday. He was ready to get outside and do some physical work.

But there was noontime meal to be eaten first, and it was a pretty joyous affair. Jesse was happy for the true maturity he'd seen in his oldest this past week, even if the state funding didn't come through. Luke was glad to be free, and Bo was thrilled to have his cousin back. Daisy was enjoying the idea of getting the house to herself for an afternoon. It had been too long that Luke had been slowly turning it into a man-mess.

Leaving Bo behind to help his female cousin with the dishes, Luke and Jesse headed out to the barn together.

"I got a chance to read your work last night, Luke. You done a real fine job," Jesse informed him.

"Thanks," his oldest said, modestly. "Don't mean we're gonna get the money, though."

"No, it don't, but even sowing these here crops don't mean we're going to get any money. You know that," the wise old man reminded him. "The point is, Luke, that you used your brains to the top of their ability this time. Whether you get results, we'll have to wait and see, but you done me proud."

His oldest turned away to climb on the tractor. "Thanks Jesse," he mumbled, red-faced, as he started the machine and steered it out towards the fields.

* * *

"Where is that cousin of yours?" Jesse stormed, nearly a half an hour later. "It don't take that long to get some dishes done!" 

Luke smirked. "I'll go get him, Jesse. I got a good idea where to find him."

"You just do that, young man. And I expect both of you back here and already hard at work in exactly twenty minutes, and not a second more, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir," Luke agreed. A third of an hour was generous, especially if the blonde was where Luke thought he might be.

Within five of the allotted twenty minutes, Luke was leaning on a tree, taking a quick moment to assess his little cousin. The boy was sitting exactly where Luke expected to find him, on "their" boulder, overlooking "their" pond. More sun glinted off of the water than would have a year ago, thanks to the thinned tree line. But the spot was just as beautiful as it had ever been.

"Bo Duke, you'd better stop mooning and get yourself out there to those fields, or Jesse's gonna tan both our hides. He gave me twenty minutes to find you and get you back there," Luke announced himself, but his tone was light. He moved to sit beside his cousin. "What're you doing out here anyways?"

"Just thinkin' about how happy everyone was at lunch," the blonde admitted, a little sheepishly. "And Luke? I know you done a great job, I ain't questioning that. But it seems to me that whether we get this 'mitigation fund' or not is totally out of our hands. I mean, the government ain't ever really been our friend, or nothin'. So why are we so happy? What if it don't work out? Will you be takin' off again?"

"Ah, Bo. I ain't goin' nowheres, we been over this," Luke answered. Slinging a gentle arm around his younger cousin, he reminded him, "You're the one that said I should think less. How come you're thinkin' so hard? Either we'll get the money or we won't. An' like my little cousin taught me, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"I taught you somethin', huh?" Bo teased. "Can I have that in writing?"

"Sure: _My pesty little cousin said one smart thing in twenty years_. How's that?" Luke answered, his right arm scrawling across the air in front of them.

"It's a start," Bo said, grinning like the good-natured young man that he had grown to be. After years of being picked on by his older cousin, Bo smiled far more often than he fought. "Tell you somethin' else. Mostly I been sittin' out here so's you'd actually have to do some honest work for a change. I got tired of havin' to come out to the fields and break my back while you was in there loungin' around all day."

"Oh, really," Luke answered, grabbing his cousin in a half-nelson.

"Yeah," the blonde giggled, using Luke's grip against him and rolling them both to the ground.

"Broke a sweat, did you?" Luke grunted, trying not to show the fact that his younger cousin was causing him to break into one right now.

"You been sitting around too long, cuz. You've gone soft." The boys were both prone in the dirt now, each trying all the wrestling moves they could remember in an attempt to get the upper hand. They were pretty evenly matched.

"Not as soft as your head," the older boy said, stifling the urge to pant. There was no real reason for him to hide his efforts, though. The younger boy was working just as hard to keep from being pinned.

Suddenly, Luke's motives changed. Scrambling around even as he vied for position over his cousin, the brunette eventually found the footing he sought. Both boots planted firmly on the boulder that he'd found Bo sitting on just a few minutes earlier, Luke's legs gave a good, firm shove.

Bo couldn't have been more surprised when he felt himself, still firmly attached to Luke, spinning downhill and hitting the cold water of their rain-swollen pond. Luke's footing had been good, and his strong legs had managed to propel them both right out to the deepest part of the water, where even Bo couldn't touch bottom. Coming up to the surface and shoving his wet hair back from his eyes, Bo was amused to find his equally submerged cousin treading water a few feet away and staring back at him through wet tendrils of dark hair, brilliant blue eyes full of mischief. Jesse wanted them back in twenty minutes, most of which must have passed by now. They wouldn't have time to get back to the house and change. The boys would have to report back for work, dripping just as much as they were right now. It wouldn't make Jesse any happier, and they'd be plenty miserable throughout the rest of the day themselves, working in wet jeans. It wasn't exactly summer yet, either. But if Luke didn't care, Bo didn't either. Of course, it wouldn't do to let on…

"You're a dead man, Lukas!" Bo threatened with a grin, starting to splash his way towards the older boy.

"Oh, bring it on, cousin!" the wet brunette taunted, though he knew a good dunking was coming at him, and he knew he deserved it. Luke Duke was enjoying this day for all it was worth.

* * *

_I won't say "the end," as life has a habit of being cyclical..._


End file.
